TERRORISM: ITALY'S ANCONA PORT CROSSROADS FOR AL QAEDA TRAFFICKING INTO BOSNIA AND EUROPE

(AGI) - Ancona, Italy, March 22 - Al Qaeds was still missing from the list of those who exploit Ancona's harbour for illegal trafficking to eastern Europe, but the Spanish police put the last piece of the puzzle during its investigations on the 3/11 attack in Madrid, even discovering that the harbour was, in 1995, the crossroads for Bin Laden's men, who then went to Bosnia to get trained and then reach the cells scattered around Europe. The chief of the local attorney office, Vincenzo Luzi, pointed out he has nothing to say on the investigation, and that he wasn't informed by anyone as regards terrorism. The fact that the Ancona harbour is a problem for the Police also came about in the recent regional conference on security, during which the city prefect, Giulio Maninchedda, stressed the presence of illegal traffic, making it the first Italian harbour with regards to drug and tobacco smuggling, particularly from Albania, whereas it was recently used to get weapons and arms through to the UCK in Kosovo, as well as the trafficking of underage children. Over the part year, the finance police and police have increased patrolling in the harbour, obtaining satisfying results, but considering that thousands of trucks and millions of passengers transit through the port every year, something can escape. "It's a passageway towards countries more at risk - said the prefect - hence it is itself at crime risk". Following the attack in Madrid, the controls of trucks, baggage and passengers has become much stricter". (AGI) . 221910 MAR 04

drug and tobacco smuggling, particularly from Albania

Bulgaria is also a related, important crossroads for that type of thing. On this an old book with some still-relevant information is:

Claire Sterling, The Terror Network

There was some mention of Sterling's book on FR recently at:

SOVIET TERROR LINKS FOUND IN LEBANON (1982) - (Early links between ETA and muslim terrorism)

Also see:

KLA rebels train in terrorist camps (Washington Times, May 4, 1999)

Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden -- who is wanted in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 persons, including 12 Americans.

[SNIP]

The KLA's involvement in drug smuggling as a means of raising funds for weapons is long-standing. Intelligence documents show it has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network in Albania that smuggles heroin to buyers throughout Western Europe and the United States. Drug agents in five countries believe the cartel is one of the most powerful heroin smuggling organizations in the world.

The documents show heroin and some cocaine is moved over land and sea from Turkey through Bulgaria, Greece and Yugoslavia to Western Europe and elsewhere. The circuit has become known as the "Balkan Route."

Cf.:

Al-Qaeda's Links in the Balkans (Insight, July 1, 2002

Nonetheless, whatever the motives of the current Macedonian government for pushing the al-Qaeda ties now, U.S. and Western intelligence sources acknowledge privately that Albania and Kosovo attracted interest from bin Laden in the late 1990s and that Albania continues to serve as a money-raising center for al-Qaeda.

Apart from sending fighters to aid the KLA during the struggle in Kosovo with the Serbs, al-Qaeda is believed to have contributed funds to Albanian separatists and to have established strong links with Albanian Mafia leaders, who aid the formally disbanded but still existing KLA in schemes to raise money through narco-trafficking, prostitution and gun-running [see "Heroin and Sex Trade Fuel Albanian Nationalism," Aug. 13, 2001].

The Albanian Mafia controls the major Balkans narcotics-smuggling route that runs through Turkey, Bulgaria, Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. Although evidence remains sketchy of al-Qaeda involvement in narcotics, that isn't the case for the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan that profited from the heroin trade.

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