LATIN AMERICA A DRUGS-TERROR LINKING PLACE?

U.S. Altering Regional Focus Since Sept. 11

FORT BENNING, Ga. -- Defense officials say they are concerned that groups
in Latin America with ties to the Middle East might be entering the cocaine
trade to fund terrorist activities.

"It's an area we're watching very closely," Army Brig. Gen. Galen Jackman,
director of operations for the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees
military operations in Latin America, said Wednesday.

Although none of the Latin American groups is believed connected to the
al-Qaida terrorist organization headed by Osama bin Laden, Jackman said
groups associated with Hezbollah, Hamas and the Egyptian group al-Gama'a
al-Islamiyya have a presence in South America and are known to be involved
in illegal activities. Some Iranian and Iraqi terrorist cells also are
believed to be operating in the region, according to Jackman.

"We know there are illicit transactions that are made throughout Latin
America involving drugs, guns and illegal migration where the proceeds find
their way to other parts of the world," said Jackman, who made his remarks
at the opening of a three-day conference on Latin America at the former
School of the Americas, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for
Security Cooperation.

Regional terrorist groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC), the National Liberation Army, also in Colombia, and Peru's
Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru have long been known to fund their
activities with cocaine and opium production.

The Taliban has also collected substantial sums from opium and heroin
production in Afghanistan.

Jackman said there is no indication that the Islamic radical groups in
Central America "are directly involved in the spread of terrorist
activities that affect us."

But he said since Sept. 11 the focus of his work has changed from
drug-fighting operations to counterterrorism. And a top Defense Department
official said the administration has changed its approach, even though
Congress has committed $1.3 billion to help Colombia with its drug war.

"We are not going to make drugs the focal point of our interaction with the
continent. That's what the prior strategy was," said Roger Pardo-Maurer,
deputy assistant secretary of defense for International Security Affairs.

Pardo-Maurer said that restrictions on the counter-drug money do not permit
it to be used for counterterrorism but that Congress is now reconsidering
because of the Sept. 11 attacks.