Posted on 11/06/2002 4:53:30 PM PST by snippy_about_it
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials announced charges Wednesday involving alleged plots to sell drugs to finance weapons purchases for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization and a Colombian paramilitary group. The separate cases show the threat to national security from the "toxic combination of drugs and terrorism," Attorney General John Ashcroft said.
One set of charges involves a plot by four people, two of them Houston-based, to trade $25 million in cocaine and cash for a huge cache of weapons to be sent to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, as the 8,000-member paramilitary group is known by its initials in Spanish.
In the second case, three people are charged with trying to sell heroin and hashish to buy four shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles for the al-Qaida terror network. An indictment says the al-Qaida link was provided by the suspects themselves.
Been there, done that. Bought the "T" shirt.
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