DRUGS-FOR-WEAPONS PLOTS FOILED, AUTHORITIES SAY

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials announced Wednesday they had foiled two plots
to use drug money to buy weapons for terrorists, including an alleged
attempt by a U.S. citizen and two Pakistanis to swap tons of heroin and
hashish for Stinger missiles they planned to sell to al- Qaida.

In the second case, Justice Department officials said they had broken up a
plot by right-wing Colombian paramilitaries to buy $25 million worth of
high-powered East European weaponry with cocaine and cash.

The cases illustrate the increasingly aggressive efforts by U.S.
authorities to staunch the flow of drug money and other funds that
terrorists use to buy weapons and finance their activities. From Islamic
militants to Colombian paramilitaries, Attorney General John Ashcroft said,
there is a "deadly nexus between terrorism and drug trafficking" that poses
a serious threat to American security.

"We have learned, and we have demonstrated, that drug traffickers and
terrorists work out of the same jungle; they plan in the same cave and they
train in the same desert," Asa Hutchinson, head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, said at a Washington news conference with Ashcroft, FBI
Director Robert S. Mueller III and other officials Wednesday.

In both cases, authorities lodged the federal charge of providing material
support to terrorist groups, a statute that has become the centerpiece of
the Justice Department's domestic war on terrorism. The charge, used rarely
before the Sept. 11 attacks, has subsequently been filed against defendants
including John Walker Lindh - who pleaded guilty to aiding the Taliban -
and alleged members of al-Qaida sleeper cells in Lackawanna, N.Y.,
Portland, Ore., Detroit and Seattle.

According to a federal indictment unsealed in San Diego on Wednesday, the
two Pakistani nationals and a naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in
Minneapolis were indicted Oct. 30 for allegedly offering to trade 5 metric
tons of hashish and 600 kilograms of heroin to undercover FBI agents for
four Stinger missiles.

As the deal progressed, according to the indictment, the men told the
agents meeting with them in Hong Kong that "they intended to sell the
'Stinger' antiaircraft missiles ... to members of the Taliban, an
organization which the defendants indicated was the same as al-Qaida." The
meetings with the men were taped, Ashcroft said.

Syed Mustajab Shah and Muhammed Abid Afridi, both from Pakistan, and Ilyas
Ali, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India, were arrested after that Sept.
20 meeting. They appeared in a Hong Kong court Tuesday to fight extradition
to the United States, officials said.

The Colombia case, called "Operation White Terror," began 13 months ago and
resulted in videotapes and audiotapes of meetings with undercover FBI and
DEA agents in London, Panama City and the Virgin Islands, where the four
suspects allegedly discussed exchanging drugs for weapons.

The arms were intended for the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, a brutal
umbrella group of paramilitary forces that has been blamed for hundreds of
assassinations, kidnappings and massacres, and was labeled a terrorist
organization by the State Department in September 2001.

U.S. authorities said the four suspects said they were going to trade $25
million in cash and cocaine for weapons including shoulder-fired
antiaircraft missiles; 9,000 assault rifles; grenade launchers and nearly
300,000 grenades; 300 pistols; and about 53 million rounds of ammunition.

In April, U.S. agents allowed one of the prospective buyers to inspect
examples of the weapons during a meeting in St. Croix, according to court
documents.

Four men were charged in the case: Carlos Ali Romero Varela and Uwe Jensen,
both of Houston, and Colombian nationals Cesar Lopez, also known as
Commandant Napo, and an unidentified defendant known only as "Commandant
Emilio."