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Border no terror corridor - so far
Still, infiltration threat via Mexico called real

Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 22, 2004 12:00 AM

Among the thousands of undocumented immigrants streaming into Arizona from Mexico each week, the U.S. Border Patrol has yet to discover a known terrorist.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security likewise have failed to detect a single al-Qaida operative who infiltrated the United States via our southern boundary.

Yet, counterterrorism experts concede that the threat is real. And conservative media suggest Arizona is already a conduit for Islamic fanatics hellbent on mass destruction.

All of which leaves average folks wondering: Is al-Qaida knocking on our back door?

That question was raised again last week when U.S. news outlets trumpeted FBI alerts about one of Osama bin Laden's important lieutenants, Adnan El Shukrijumah. The bulletin to border watchers was based on intelligence that Shukrijumah was seen in Honduras months ago and might travel through Mexico on a U.S. terror mission.

FBI spokeswoman Susan Herskovits said the sighting was never confirmed and there is no evidence Shukrijumah had any such plan.

In fact, the intelligence picture is fuzzy all over. No one knows if any terrorists have slipped in from Mexico undetected. Nor can anyone predict whether they will.

Among law enforcement officials, the consensus seems to be that al-Qaida is not rushing to Arizona's southern entrance because terrorists have found safer, easier routes into America.

"These people are meticulous," said Col. Norm Beasley, who oversees counterterrorism efforts with the Arizona Department of Public Safety. "They do not like leaving anything to chance.... And there is a tremendous effort at the federal level to really watch for those (undocumented immigrants) who are non-Hispanic....

"I'm concerned about the Mexican border. But, from a pure terrorism issue, I'm more concerned about the Canadian border."

Even the lightly patrolled northern line has been terrorist-free since 1999, when a U.S. Customs agent stopped Algerian immigrant Ahmed Ressam as he tried to enter Washington state with a carload of explosives. (Ressam, serving a 27-year sentence, admitted al-Qaida ties in his planned attack on Los Angeles International Airport.)

Beasley and others point out that, so far, bin Laden's operatives have been successful crisscrossing the world and entering America with forged documents or valid visas. They note that Arizona's 375-mile border with Sonora is a treacherous outback where the risk of getting caught is high, even for veteran smugglers.

Why would terrorists who don't speak Spanish or blend in easily in Mexico run such a gauntlet when there are other options?

Andy Adame, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, noted that every captured immigrant is questioned at length, and the Tucson Sector's 2,100 agents are trained to spot non-Mexicans. Those who fall under suspicion are turned over to the FBI for questioning.

Roger Maier of U.S. Customs and Border Protection said border control has been beefed up dramatically since Sept. 11, with more manpower and technology. "Our primary mission is anti-terrorism," he added. "The inspection process is more thorough than it's ever been."

Adame said al-Qaida operatives would stand out in northern Mexico so much that even coyotes would shun them. "When you talk terrorists, I think the smuggler realizes there are no boundaries," he noted. "Sitting in Mexico, he's still not safe."

The threat
Still, a Border Patrol report on "other-than-Mexican" immigrants detained from October 2003 to July 2004 shows a trickle of illegal crossers from nations with known populations of Islamic terrorists: five from Iraq, 19 from Pakistan, none from Yemen, six from Saudi Arabia.

Critics say al-Qaida insurgents could be among them. A review of media reports on the LexisNexis database, however, shows only a few terror-related arrests with Mexican implications:

• A Pakistani woman, Farida Goolam Mahomed Ahmed, apparently crossed illegally into Texas from Mexico last month and was arrested trying to board a flight to New York. Her name appears on a federal watch list. The Associated Press said she was indicted for carrying a false passport and lying to investigators.

• According to the Dallas Morning News, a Mexican counterterrorism squad in Sinaloa sought two Middle Eastern men late last year after they allegedly bought one-way tickets to Los Angeles. The men weren't found. At least one police official said the case was a hoax.

• Authorities in Baja, Calif., received a tip that Saudi Arabian terrorism suspect Ali Saed Bin Ali El-Hoorie was seen trying to open a bank account in Tijuana. Wire services said that, too, turned out to be a false alarm.

• Kamran Akhtar, a 35-year-old New Yorker, was arrested in North Carolina last month while videotaping Charlotte skyscrapers. The Associated Press said investigators found additional film of buildings in Las Vegas, Dallas and Houston. Akhtar allegedly entered the country from Mexico illegally - in 1991.

Some see scare tactics
Steve Emerson, a radical-Islam researcher and author of American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us, says Mexico could become a conduit even if it hasn't been to date.

"Is there known evidence of al-Qaida operatives arrested on the border? I don't think so," he acknowledged. "But any point of entry is a potential route for the bad guys."

The issue is particularly hot with Republican politicians and conservative groups seeking to close the door on Hispanic immigration.

GOP congressional candidate Stan Barnes, for example, has plastered East Valley roadsides with signs touting his big issue: "Secure our Borders."

"In the name of national security, we must do something about our wide-open southern border," said Barnes. "We are now in a war mentality. The first duty of a country in a war situation is to protect its borders."

Vernon Robinson, a GOP congressional candidate in Winston-Salem, N.C., recently ran TV ads picturing Kamran Akhtar and labeling him a Pakistani terrorist. "He got arrested videotaping targets in North Carolina," said the narrator. "He came here illegally, across our Mexican border."

According to the Associated Press, Department of Homeland Security officials found no terrorism ties. Akhtar was charged only with immigration violations. Family members said he was trying out his new video camera on a nationwide bus tour.

Pro-immigration advocates claim national security is being cheapened by fear mongers.

"I think it's election-year politics," said Robin Hoover, president of Tucson-based Humane Borders. "All we hear is rumor, hearsay. Fear does sell."

"They're using terrorism, in some cases, to divide the community," added Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz.

Barnes, who makes no apologies for targeting undocumented immigrants and terrorists at the same time, says he has tapped the public pulse with both causes. "The threat is real," Barnes added. "I don't think we should wait for a terrorist attack in Tucson, Arizona, before we act and do our job."

An invasion?
Discourse on border security is complicated by rumor and wild tales, especially on the Internet.

Chris Simcox, publisher of the Tombstone Tumbleweed and founder of a civilian border militia, reported in July that dozens of Middle Easterners invaded Arizona two months ago and the government covered it up.

The former Los Angeles kindergarten teacher wrote that, on June 13, Border Patrol agents in southeast Arizona captured 53 men from Syria or Iran in a single group. One week later, Simcox alleged, 24 more Arabic-speaking males were rounded up in Cochise County and that countless others got away.

The information was attributed to unidentified Border Patrol agents who purportedly said the interlopers wore baseball caps and T-shirts with American flags and slogans. "They looked as if they had just been to the barbershop, you know," one agent purportedly said. "New haircuts. They were clean-cut and they all had almost the exact cut of mustaches."

Simcox has warned Mexico that his Civil Homeland Defense volunteers will treat all undocumented aliens as "enemies of the state." Earlier this year, he was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon into Chiricahua National Monument and of lying to a federal officer.

Unverified
Meanwhile, no other journalist in the country could verify that 77 mustachioed, flag-wearing Muslims were silently scooped up and secretly whisked to points unknown.

Adame, the Border Patrol spokesman, said large groups of immigrants were caught on the dates and locations identified by Simcox. However, he added, "Every single one of them was Mexican.... I don't know what he's talking about. How can you hide 50 or whatever Middle Easterners? There's no way."

Yet the story spread through Internet sites until the Sunday Telegraph of London and other media regurgitated it as truth.

Last week, Tucson television station KVOA reported findings in a three-month investigation of border invaders from "terrorist nations." According to an online transcript, reporter Tom McNamara declared the evidence was "frightening" and "compelling."

The leading video image was a Muslim prayer blanket found outside Douglas in 2001. Reporters did not identify any terrorists who crossed into Arizona from Mexico. But they did quote the Tombstone Tumbleweed, as well as retired U.S. Army Col. Ben Anderson of Sierra Vista, who wants the border militarized to stop the northward swarm of immigrants.

"This is the main alley," Anderson said into the camera. " . . . 'Terrorist Alley.' Whatever you want to call it, Arizona is the prime place."

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