U.S. Fears Terrorism Via Mexico's Time-Tested Smuggling Routes
SAN DIEGO — Growing fears that Al Qaeda emissaries are looking to tap into well-worn smuggling routes along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border have led to a security crackdown in recent months as well as new levels of official cross-border cooperation, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials say.
Officials say they have no hard evidence of an Al Qaeda presence in Mexico. But intelligence reports, security alerts and other recent incidents have raised fresh concern that terrorists view America's porous southern border as a window of opportunity.
"We are seeing a pattern of terrorist suspects exploring opportunities to get hold of Mexican passports and documents and infiltrating into the U.S. through Mexico," said Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
A major concern, he said, is that terrorists will use South America as a launching pad to slip into Mexico and ultimately the United States, using smuggling rings or forged documents. Counterterrorism officials said that Islamic terrorist groups have long used the tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay as a base for fundraising and recruiting.
U.S. counterterrorism officials have long viewed the Canadian border with concern. It was at a Port Angeles, Wash., border crossing in December 1999 that agents arrested Ahmed Ressam, who was subsequently convicted of plotting with Al Qaeda to bomb Los Angeles International Airport.
Canada has large pockets of Middle Easterners and, compared with Mexico, the border to the north had never been heavily guarded against illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.
But according to staff members of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, accused mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had a keen interest in smuggling Al Qaeda operatives across the Mexican border. Investigators were not able to determine whether he succeeded.
A study of border security released by the commission this summer warns of links between human smugglers and terrorists. Among other concerns, the staff report cites "uncorroborated law enforcement reports suggesting that associates of Al Qaeda used smugglers in Latin America to travel through the region in 2002 before traveling onward to the United States."
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- U.S., 2 States in Border Control Rift Aug 17, 2005
