CHARGES FILED IN PLOT TO SELL DRUGS, FUND ARMS

U.S. Says Al-Qaeda, Colombian Group Were Intended Beneficiaries

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials announced charges Wednesday involving alleged
plots to sell drugs to fund weapons for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda
organization and a Colombian paramilitary group.

The separate cases show the threat to national security from the "toxic
combination of drugs and terrorism," said Attorney General John Ashcroft.

One set of charges involves a plot by four people, two of them from
Houston, 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.

U.S. authorities said the four suspects believed they were going to trade
the money and cocaine for 9,000 AK-47s and other assault rifles; grenade
launchers and nearly 300,000 grenades; 300 pistols; shoulder-fired
anti-aircraft missiles; and about 53 million rounds of ammunition.

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-Qaeda terror network. An indictment says the al-Qaeda link was provided
by the suspects themselves.

Top U.S. law enforcement officials called the arrests in both cases a
serious blow against terrorism.

"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," said Asa Hutchinson, director of the Drug
Enforcement Agency.

In the Houston case, called Operation White Terror, undercover agents
videotaped meetings in London, the Virgin Islands and Panama City, Panama,
in which the defendants allegedly discussed exchanging drugs and cash for
weapons headed for the AUC, Mr. Ashcroft said.

The AUC is the umbrella group for right-wing paramilitaries blamed for most
of Colombia's massacres and hundreds of assassinations. The State
Department considers the AUC and the two main left-wing guerrilla armies it
opposes to be terrorist organizations. The AUC's leader, Carlos Castano,
already is charged in the United States with exporting 17 tons of cocaine
into the United States and Europe.

According to an FBI affidavit, undercover officers taped an April 28, 2002,
meeting at a warehouse in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, in which one of
the suspects and a self-described AUC weapons expert called Raquel
allegedly inspected a cache of Russian-made weapons actually provided by
the FBI.

Authorities also seized numerous e-mails involving the negotiations,
including one from a top AUC commander saying his associates must have "a
visual inspection of the whole farm" - believed to refer to the weapons -
before terms could be settled.

The four were charged in Houston with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and
conspiracy to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist
organization. The charges could carry up to life in prison, Mr. Ashcroft said.

Two suspects were identified as Uwe Jensen, 66, and Carlos Ali Romero
Varela, 43, both of Houston. There was less detail on two others: Carlos
Lopez and an individual identified only as "Commandant Emilio."

Mr. Jensen was arrested Tuesday in Houston. In a federal court appearance
Wednesday, he described himself as Danish but a U.S. citizen and was told
he would be held until at least a Friday hearing. The three others were
arrested Tuesday in San Jose, Costa Rica, after traveling there to finalize
the deal with U.S. undercover agents. They face extradition to the United
States.

In the San Diego case, Mr. Ashcroft disclosed an indictment against two
Pakistanis and one U.S. citizen originally from India who have been held
since Sept. 20 in Hong Kong. They allegedly sought to sell 600 kilograms of
heroin and five metric tons of hashish in the San Diego area and use the
money to buy Stinger missiles.

The three suspects in custody in Hong Kong were identified as Syed Mustajab
Shah and Muhammed Abid Afridi, both of Pakistan, and Ilyas Ali of Minneapolis.

They appeared in a Hong Kong court on Tuesday to fight extradition to the
United States. Hong Kong, a former British colony now under Chinese rule,
has an extradition treaty with the United States.

During a visit to Asia last month, Mr. Ashcroft praised Hong Kong for
helping cut off terrorist financing and met with local officials about
finding new ways to cooperate in the anti-terror war. He repeated that
praise for China on Wednesday.