Posted on 12/18/2009 9:50:12 AM PST by reaganaut1
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed narcotics and terrorism charges on Friday against three West Africans they identified as associates of Al Qaeda and a related terrorist group.
While the United States Drug Enforcement Administration has long maintained that Al Qaeda has been involved in drug trafficking, officials at the agency said the case represented the first time such charges had been brought against people linked with the group.
The three men identified as Oumar Issa, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abelrahman were arrested on Wednesday in Ghana and flown to the United States on Thursday night, law enforcement officials said.
They were charged with narcotics terrorism conspiracy, the officials said, as well as conspiracy to provide material support to terrorist groups Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
The case grew out of sting operation, officials said. Two Drug Enforcement Administration informants posing as members of FARC, the Colombian terrorist group, approached the men, seeking their help to move large quantities of cocaine from West Africa, through North Africa and the desert and into Spain, the officials said.
The three men, who identified themselves to the informants as either associates of Al Qaeda, or of a related group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, told the informants that they had provided similar transportation and security services to members of Al Qaeda, the officials said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The U.S. better get more serious in the war on drugs, and start shutting down the U.S.-Mexico border and going after the drug trafficking organizations — whether Mexican drug cartels or traditional Mafia groups — because the lines between terrorism and organized crime increasingly are blurring.
We just keep letting them in....
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