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officer who defected to Germany toldArgentine prosecutors that
ImadMugniyah was the principal suspect inthe Buenos Aires
bombings.5U.S. of-ficials consider Mugniyah the master-mind of the
1983 suicide bombing ofthe U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which sug-gests
he has direct ties to Hezbollahand Iran.6Argentine Jews (and
manynon-Jews) reportedly feel former Ar-gentine President Carlos
Saul Menem,of Syrian ancestry, accepted a bribeto conceal Irans
role in the bomb-ings.7Although we cannot confirmthe growing
radicalization of Islamiccommunities in the TBA, we musttake the
possibility into account andclosely monitor the situation.
Al-Qaeda is a network of terroristgroups scattered all over the
worldwith a presence in practically everycountry. Are Osama
bin-Ladensoperatives also present in the TBA?Local and
international media havewritten about al-Qaeda and other Is-lamist
terrorist groups setting up train-ing camps in the TBA and even
hav-ing secret summit meetings in the area, althoughintelligence
and law-enforcement officials have notcorroborated these reports.
The governments of thethree TBA countries say terrorism is not a
problemin the region and emphasize that they have neverdetected
terrorist activity or cells there.8In Decem-ber 2002, Argentina,
Brazil, Paraguay, and the UnitedStates agreed that no concrete,
detailed tactical in-formation . . . support[s] the theory that
there areterrorist sleeper cells or al-Qaeda operatives in
theTBA.9
Even so, U.S. and regional officials worry that il-legal
activity and commerce in the area fund ter-rorist groups, primarily
Hezbollah and Hamas.Hezbollah relies extensively on Islamic
moneythrough the common Arab community practice of
remitting funds to relatives in the Middle East. In ad-dition,
with the complicity of corrupt local officials,the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia(FARC) paid Brazilian and Paraguayan
organizedcriminal groups to obtain weapons and equipmentin exchange
for cocaine.
After 11 September 2001, the TBA attracted somuch attention from
local law-enforcement groups,intelligence agencies, and the
international media thatmany regional experts believe terrorists
moved to
less scrutinized locations in Latin America. This isnot to
suggest, however, that Argentina, Brazil, andParaguays
counterterrorism efforts have eliminatedterrorism in the TBA.
Latin American Linksto Global Terrorism
Terrorist groups seek target-rich environmentsfor financial
support, safe haven, and recruitment.Six million Muslims inhabit
Latin American cities,which are ideal centers for recruiting and
hidingterrorists. Ungoverned areas, primarily in the Ama-zon
regions of Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, Co-lombia, Ecuador, Peru,
Bolivia, and Brazil, presenteasily exploitable terrain over which
to move peopleand material. Over-populated Latin American
cities
are home to many disenfranchised groups andmarginalized
communities capable of supportingterrorist activities or fomenting
homegrown terror-ism. The Free Trade Zones of Iquique,
Chile;Maicao, Colombia; and Colon, Panama, can gener-ate undetected
financial and logistical support for ter-rorist groups. Colombia,
Bolivia, and Peru offer co-caine as a lucrative source of income.
In addition,Cuba and Venezuela have cooperative agreementswith
Syria, Libya, and Iran.10
The population in the Tri-Border Area is concentrated in three
border cities: Ciudaddel Este, Paraguay; Foz do Iguau, Brazil; and
Iguazu, Argentina. The Arabcommunity of immigrants that represents
a slice of the urban population in thearea, mainly Ciudad del Este
and Foz do Iguau, is estimated to be nearly 30,000.
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54 September-October 2004 MILITARY REVIEW
of the West and a determinationto attack it.15To get at the
sourceof terrorism, the United States andits allies must ensure
their count-erterrorism policies and strategiesare balanced and
clearly articu-lated.
The National Strategy for Com-bating Terrorism aims to
identifyand eliminate terrorist threatsbefore they reach U.S.
borders.The document states, The intentof this strategy is to stop
terroristattacks against the United States,its citizens, its
interests, and itsallies and, ultimately, to create aninternational
environment inhos-pitable to terrorists and those who
support them.16To accomplish these tasks, theUnited States and
its allies must act to
Defeat terrorists and their organizations by us-ing all elements
of national power: diplomatic, eco-nomic, information, law
enforcement, military, andintelligence.
Deny terrorists the sponsorship, support, andsanctuary that
enable them to exist, gain strength,train, plan, and execute their
attacks, and cut offtheir access to territory, funds, equipment,
training,technology, and unimpeded transit.
Reduce the underlying conditions that terror-ists seek to
exploit, such as poverty, deprivation, so-cial disenfranchisement,
and unresolved political andregional disputes.
Defend U.S. sovereignty, territory, and nationalinterests at
home and abroad.17
U.S. counterterrorism strategy toward LatinAmerica has
essentially adopted the rollback ap-proach the Reagan
Administration used against left-ists and communists. The strategy
does not ad-equately address the underlying conditions
thatterrorists exploit. This preemptive, zero-tolerancestrategy
calls on regional leaders to adopt U.S. se-curity interests as
their own.18
From a military perspective, the most importantresponsibility is
executing the GWOT StrategicCampaign Plan. Through combatant
commanderstheater security cooperation plans,
military-to-militarycontacts foster bilateral and multilateral
cooperationto promote U.S. security interests.
The United States has worked with Colombia toprotect the latters
strategically important oil fieldsfrom FARC sabotage, but the U.S
has no long-termplans to work with Latin American militaries. By
and
large, the United States does not consider LatinAmerican
militaries to be key players on the worldscene, although some
participated in the Persian Gulfwar, United Nations peacekeeping
operations, andOperation Iraqi Freedom. Although the DOS
hasconcluded that Latin America has suffered nearly40 percent of
all terrorist attacks in the WesternHemisphere, Latin America
(except for Colombia)remains a low priority in the U.S.
counterterrorismstrategy.
Future TrendsThe world is confronting a new brand of terror-
ism based on religious-sectarian-nationalist
convic-tions.19While terrorist movements have had hun-dreds or even
thousands of members in the past,these new terrorist groups have
only a few mem-bers.
The new terrorism is more radical, irrational, anddifficult to
detect. Clear dividing lines once separatedterrorists from
guerrillas or criminals and homegrownterrorists from
state-sponsored terrorists, but theselines have become
blurred.20Terrorist groups like al-Qaeda now likely have access to
weapons of massdestruction and use extreme methods, as observed
during attacks on the World Trade Center and
thePentagon.Economically marginalized and disenfranchised
groups are made-to-order for terrorists to exploit.The
piqueteros (picketers) in Argentina, cocaleros(cocaine dealers) in
Bolivia, Movimento Sem Terra(Movement of Those Without Land) in
Brazil, andthe Pachakutik indigenous peoples in Ecuador,
theBolivarian Circles in Venezuela, and peasants groupsin Paraguay
are ethnically and economically op-
Ciudad del Este, Paraguay
revistaturismo.c
om
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55MILITARY REVIEW September-October 2004
pressed groups whose destabilizing power is grow-ing, whose
leaders are gaining political prominence,and who could be
susceptible to terrorisms appeals.
The TBAs exact role in attracting terrorist groupsis not
entirely clear, but Ciudad del Estes Arab andMuslim community has
raised funds through moneylaundering, illicit drug and weapons
trafficking, smug-gling, and piracy, with some of the funds
reportedlygoing to Hezbollah and Hamas to support terroristacts
against Israel. The FARC also reportedly main-tains a fundraising
presence in the TBA. This ex-tensive terrorist financial network
also stretches toMargarita Island, Panama, and the Caribbean.
The TBAs dangerous combination of vast ungov-erned areas,
poverty, illicit activity, disenfranchisedgroups, ill-equipped
law-enforcement agencies andmilitaries, and fragile democracies is
an open invi-tation to terrorists and their supporters.
Undeterred
criminal activity, economic inequality, and the rise
ofdisenfranchised groups with the potential to collabo-rate with
terrorists present a daunting challenge.
Terrorism today is transnational and decentralized.International
support of a multidimensional counter-terrorism strategy is
necessary to defeat it.Colombias less-than-successful
counternarcoticsstrategy demonstrates that unilateral action does
notnecessarily eradicate or eliminate drug trafficking.The same is
true of terrorism. Unilateral action inAfghanistan has not
eliminated the global terroristthreat. Without multilateral,
cooperative deterrence,terrorist organizations will simply migrate
across po-rous borders to less scrutinized areas. As long as
Lieutenant Colonel Philip K. Abbott, U.S. Army, is Army Section
Chief, United StatesMilitary Group, Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He
received a B.A. from Norwich University,an M.A. from Kansas
University, and he is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command
andGeneral Staff College. He has served in various command and
staff positions in the con-tinental United States, Latin America,
and Europe.
NOTES1. John Price, International Terrorism in Latin America, a
Broad and Costly Secu-
rity Risk, InfoAmericas, October 2001, on-line at , accessed 2
August 2004.
2. Rex Hudson, Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the
Tri-Border Area (TBA)of South America,Federal Research Division,
The Library of Congress (Washington,DC: Government Printing Office
[GPO], July 2003), 53.
3. Anthony Faiola, U.S. Terrorist Search Reaches Paraguay: Black
Market BorderHub Called Key Finance Center for Middle East
Extremists, Washington Post, 13 Oc-tober 2001, A21.
4. Mario Daniel Montoya, Israel Takes Special Interest in Triple
Border Area, JanesIntelligence Review13, December 2001, 13-14.
5. Mike Boettcher, South Americas Tri-Border Back on Terrorism
Radar, CNN,8 November 2002, on-line at , accessed 2 August
2004.
6. Ibid.7. Chris Moss, Latin Americas First Mega-Mosque Opens
Eyes to Islam, on-line
at , accessed 16 August2004.
8. Horacio Verbitsky, Pagina 12, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 26
January 2003, 124,Internet version. (No other publishing
information given.)9. J. Cofer Black, Department of State
Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Testimony
to the Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on
International Terrorism,Nonproliferation, and Human Rights, U.S.
House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.,26 March 2003, on-line
at ,accessed 16 August 2004.
10. Martin Arostegui, Chavez Plans for Terrorist Regime,
Insight, 24 December2002, on-line at , accessed 2 August 2004.11.
The White House,National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, February
2003, on-
line at , accessed 2 August 2004.
12. Department of State (DOS), Office of the Coordinator for
Counter-Terrorism, LatinAmerican Overview, Patterns of Global
Terrorism 2000 (Washington, DC: GPO, 2001).
13. DOS, Fact Sheet on Inter-American Convention Against
Terrorism, Washington,D.C., 31 May 2002, on-line at , accessed 2
August 2004.
14. Mercosur, the Common Market of South America, has four
permanent members(Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay) and
three associate members (Bolivia, Chile,and Peru).
15. Dore Gold, Hatreds Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the
New Global Ter-rorism (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2003),
184.
16. National Strategy for Combating Terrorism.17. Ibid.18.
Charles Knight, Essential Elements Missing in the National Security
Strategy of
2002, Commonwealth Institute, Project on Defense Alternatives
Commentary, Cambridge,
MA, November 2002, on-line at , accessed 16 Au-gust 2004.19.
Ibid.20. Walter Laqueur,The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms
of Mass Destruc-
tion (London: Oxford University Press, 2000),251.21. Thomas
Friedman,Longitudes and Attitudes: The World in the Age of
Terrorism
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 236.22. Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr.,
Foreign Terrorist List Vital in Global War on Terror-
ism, DOS, 5 January 2004.
terrorism does not directly affect them, nations in theTBA will
place economic considerations ahead ofsecurity concerns, seek
economic prosperity, andremain reluctant to tighten border controls
or placenew restrictions on commerce and transportation.
The potential for terrorism in the TBA and else-where in Latin
America is clearly no myth. The TBAand several other tri-border
areas in Latin Americawill emerge as ideal breeding grounds for
terroristsand those groups that support them, unless countriesin
the region make changes in their judicial systems,improve their
law-enforcement and military capabili-ties, take effective
anticorruption measures, and co-operate with each other. The
potential for MiddleEast terrorists to operate in the TBA and
elsewherein Latin America warrants closer scrutiny.
The United States can only win the GWOT if ithas regional
partners ready and willing to take pre-
emptive action and not just wait for the UnitedStates to act.
Closing down charities that fund ter-rorism, rounding up suspected
terrorists, and de-nouncing terrorism is in the regional partners
self-interest.21Only effective diplomacy can bring thisto pass.
According to Ambassador J. Cofer Black,DOS Coordinator for
Counterterrorism, [Diplo-macy] is the instrument of power that
builds politi-cal will and strengthens international
cooperation.Through diplomatic exchanges, we
promotecounterterrorism cooperation with friendly nations,enhance
the capabilities of our allies, take the warto the terrorists, and
ultimately cut off the resourcesthey depend on to survive.22MR
WINNING THE FIGHT
