U.S. TO PATROL ALBERTA BORDER BY AIR

Two Black Hawk Helicopters Bound For Montana Base

As Canadian border guards look forward to having guns on their hips
within a year, the Americans will soon be patrolling the U.S.-Alberta
border with two Black Hawk helicopters and planes equipped with radar
taken from F-16 fighter jets.

The Northern Border Air Wing, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security, is setting up in Great Falls, Mont. -- a post that will see
security tightened along the U.S.-Canada border as never before.

One Black Hawk helicopter, similar to those used by the U.S. military,
is already stationed at Great Falls International Airport, with
another due to arrive within days.

The air wing will bolster the border guards based at Havre, Mont., and
patrol about 730 kilometres, from the North Dakota border to the
Continental Divide.

The post, a direct result of the U.S.-led war on terror, is one of
five that will eventually help patrol the entire 8,891 kilometres of
the world's longest undefended border -- a description that now seems
to be a misnomer.

Mike Milne, a Seattle-based spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, said officers stationed at Great Falls will chase down
illegal aliens and drug runners, but their main mission will be to
prevent terror suspects from entering the U.S. from Canada.

"The first priority is terrorism," Milne told the Herald.

"They will fly missions along the border to prevent terrorists and
terror weapons from coming into the U.S., to target drug smuggling and
(prevent) illegal entry of people that are avoiding going through
ports of entry."

Once operational, the air wing is expected to have a one-hour response
time, anywhere along the border.

Aircraft will be on the lookout for people crossing by air or by land.
Anyone crossing illegally will initially be considered a terror threat.

"You basically start with a matrix -- are they terrorists, or with
terror weapons," said Milne, "and then you go down from there."

Pilots and ground staff are currently undergoing training, flying out
of the Great Falls airport. Homeland Security signed a multi-year
lease for hangar and office space in June.

"The expansion of operations in Montana is another significant step
forward toward a deliberate and strategic expansion of Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) border security operations along the northern
border," Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner for CBP air and
marine, said at the time.

More than 50 personnel will work out of the new detachment, including
20 pilots and about 25 maintenance crew. The post is expected to be
fully operational within six weeks.

Dennis Lindsay, director of air operations at the Great Falls post,
said the border detachment will replicate work already being done out
of posts in Bellingham, north of Seattle, and Plattsburgh, N.Y.

Two more posts will be developed next year, in North Dakota and
Michigan.

"It's an effort to provide assistance to the border patrol section, to
help them to better secure the border," Lindsay said.

He said the town of Great Falls has embraced the new post. "This will
have huge economic impact on Great Falls."

The effectiveness of the aerial border posts was seen just two months
ago, during the high-profile Operation Frozen Timber on the West
Coast. In late June, Canadian and U.S. authorities announced they'd
broken up a highly organized drug smuggling ring that used helicopters
and fixed-wing aircraft to ferry tons of drugs across the border,
dropping their cache in remote woods in Washington and British Columbia.

Aerial support out of the Bellingham post proved crucial in the
success of Operation Frozen Timber. In May, CBP aircraft, acting on a
tip from RCMP in B.C., tracked a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter to a
landing site in Washington's Okanogan County.

U.S. Immigration and Enforcement agents watched as drugs were
allegedly transferred from the helicopter to a waiting pickup truck.
Officers on the ground stopped the vehicle and recovered 150 kilograms
of marijuana.

When the helicopter landed back in B.C., the RCMP arrested its two
Canadian pilots and charged them with trafficking. Kostelnik said CBP
and RCMP aircraft played a vital role in the investigation.

The opening of the Great Falls post comes as the U.S. turns its
attention to its northern border. Last week, a congressional hearing
swept into Montana as the House of Representatives gathered
information for its own immigration bill.

During the hearing, chairman Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado,
raised eyebrows by suggesting the Canada-U.S. border was so porous
that a cleanly shaven Osama bin Laden could slip across, pretending to
be a tent maker, something Tancredo has repeated since 2002.

Tancredo, who is mulling a presidential run, added "terrorists and
drug smuggling" are the primary concerns on the border.

The Canadian side is also patrolled by helicopter -- the Rocky
Mountain Integrated Border Enforcement Team uses an RCMP helicopter to
monitor activity.

The Alberta IBET team, which includes personnel from the U.S. Border
Patrol and the U.S. Customs Service, also does regular vehicle patrols.

Insp. Greg Shields, of the Rocky Mountain IBET team, said officers do
their best to secure the country's southern border.

"What the U.S. does on their border is their sovereign right," he
said. "In my opinion, it's reasonably well secured for the world's
largest border. There are thousands of miles of border out there."

Officials hope the eventual arming of Canada's border guards will help
make the land ports more secure.

The Harper government announced Thursday the country's border guards
will be armed from next year; by March 2008, 150 guards will be given
firearms, with another 4,400 guards armed within 10 years.

The federal government will also hire an additional 400 permanent
border officers. However, the national vice-president of the Customs
and Excise Union told the Herald that Canada still has "a long ways to
go" to match security efforts on the U.S. side of the border.

"The U.S. armed their officers three decades ago," said Steve
Pellerin-Fowlie.

"We have battled with several governments over 21 years on this
issue."