Posted on 01/08/2002 11:52:03 PM PST by JohnHuang2
While the Bush administration seeks billions more in the 2003 budget to finance military and civilian efforts aimed at beefing up homeland security, there is increasing concern among experts that new attacks against the American homeland could come from outside the country, including at least one unlikely region – the Caribbean.
George Dole, a New York-based businessman, former Justice Department lawyer and frequent traveler to the region, characterized airport security as "a joke" at most major international hubs in nations like Jamaica, the Bahamas and the British Cayman Islands.
"You can have these Muslim terrorists flying in [to the region] from Trinidad" and other nearby countries with active Islamic communities, "because there's no visa required," he said.
From there, he added, terrorists could hijack airliners and ram them into U.S. installations in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where U.S. military officials are now bringing some of the al-Qaida fighters captured in Afghanistan.
"The point would be to kill Americans," Dole said, adding that few people believed that terrorist hijackers would commandeer U.S. airliners and ram them into skyscrapers in New York City and into the Pentagon.
While some say such a notion is outlandish, Dole – who has friends in the region who are close to some government officials there – disagrees. He says some Jamaican officials, for example, privately worry that their airports could be used by potential terrorist hijackers as a staging point for just those kinds of attacks.
Besides the potential for more death and destruction, Caribbean officials also fret that terrorist-sponsored attacks launched from their countries would hurt tourism – their primary moneymaker.
Already, the Sept. 11 attacks "have weakened prospects for economic growth and the business climate throughout the hemisphere," said Lino Gutierrez, acting assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, in a Dec. 17 speech. "Countries with strong trade and tourism links to the U.S., such as Canada, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, are particularly vulnerable to economic fallout from the attacks."
The World Bank, Gutierrez said, has determined that the Caribbean "has been the most severely affected part of the world – primarily via the drop in tourism – after Afghanistan's immediate neighbors."
And though most active known terrorist cells in the Western Hemisphere are located in Colombia, Peru and the tri-state area of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, Gutierrez says "there are concerns about terrorists with international ties abusing the Caribbean financial system to raise funds or launder money."
There are other tangible signs that Islamic militants are active in the Caribbean and some countries of South America.
Just last month authorities in Paraguay were confounded when Assad Ahmad Barakat – an electronics store owner and Lebanese immigrant who is one of Paraguay's most-wanted men – eluded them by finding refuge six miles over the border in Brazil. He is suspected of recruiting members for the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah.
"Yes, I am a sympathizer of the Party of God. But that does not mean that I support terrorism or terrorists," he told The Associated Press Dec. 12.
U.S. officials are interested in Barakat because of his support for such groups and because his activities point to a connection between the tri-border region and Islamic terror groups.
"We have strong indications, not only of the presence of individuals linked to terrorism, but also of a substantial flow of money from the tri-border region to terrorist groups in the Middle East," Mark Davidson, spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Paraguay, told AP.
Also, as early as October 2000, Security and Political Risk Analysis – an India-based think tank – published a paper describing the manner and methods that Mideast terrorist groups are using in the Caribbean to recruit new members and stage attacks against North American targets.
SAPRA noted that Ali Mohammed, an ex-U.S. Army sergeant of Egyptian descent, pleaded guilty in U.S. district court to charges that he had helped al-Qaida network leader and renowned terrorist Osama bin Laden plot to kill Americans anywhere in the world.
He admitted he helped plan attacks against the U.S. military in Somalia and Saudi Arabia, as well as attacks against Americans at unspecified embassies. In his plea, he "described bin Laden as central in a massive conspiracy by members of an Islamic holy war (jihad) movement to target U.S. military installations and embassies worldwide," the Indian think tank said.
"Mohammed's plea of guilty has focused attention on the efforts of Pakistan and Afghanistan-based Jihadi extremists to recruit members from the Muslim communities in North America and the Caribbean Islands to use them initially for operations against U.S. interests in West Asia and then subsequently for promoting jihad in the U.S. territory itself," said SAPRA.
And, some intelligence experts have speculated about a possible link between the Caribbean Islamic extremists and bin Laden's al-Qaida network, the Miami Herald reported Dec. 1.
A State Department spokesman told WorldNetDaily that there had been "no heightened concern" about terrorist activities in the Caribbean since Sept. 11.
One of the ways in which the U.S. is working with Western Hemisphere nations to reduce the risk of future terrorist attacks is to tighten border control.
"An international cooperative effort to reduce the ability of terrorists to move across key borders is crucial," Counterterrorism Coordinator and U.S. Ambassador-at-large Francis X. Taylor told Inter-American Counterterrorism Committee of the Organization of American States Oct. 15.
"We know that we will never have perfect knowledge of every person and every vehicle that crosses these borders," he said. In order to provide better homeland security, Taylor continued, "we in the U.S. know that we must work hand in hand with intelligence, law enforcement, customs and immigration officials in Mexico, Canada, as well as the Central American and Caribbean states – the U.S. 'third border.'"
He recommended more training for border and customs personnel, the use of identification systems, and upgrading INTERPOL databases.
The FBI and several other U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies have investigated connections between al-Qaida militants and Colombian guerrillas, forged documents traced to Brazil and Argentina, and money laundering operations stretching from Peru to the Caribbean.
But can Americans expect new terrorist attacks from the region?
"Most people didn't expect the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, either," Dole said.
Has the ACLU and other "civil libertarian" groups been alerted of this practice? ;^)
The 'fairy' cruise was denied entry some years back. Caymanians do not wish to cater to the homosexual trade.
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