U.S.: GULF DRUG BOAT MAY HAVE TERROR LINK

WASHINGTON - The Navy has seized a boat carrying nearly two tons of hashish
in the Persian Gulf, U.S. officials said Friday, in what could be some of
the first hard evidence of al-Qaida links to drug smuggling.

The guided missile destroyer USS Decatur intercepted the 40-foot boat on
Monday. Aboard were a dozen men, three of them believed to have al-Qaida
connections, and 3,780 pounds of hashish, the Navy said Friday.

"This is the first empirical evidence I've seen that conclusively links
al-Qaida with the drug trade," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at
RAND, a think tank that often does work for the Pentagon.

The Decatur seized the boat, a wooden vessel called a dhow, near the
Straits of Hormuz, a narrow part of the Persian Gulf where it opens into
the Arabian Sea. The area is a known smuggling route for al-Qaida, the Navy
said.

The drugs are worth between $8 million and $10 million, the Navy said.

Military officials would not say Friday why they believed the boat, its
cargo and some of its crew were linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist
network. The boat remained under the Decatur's control and it had not been
determined what to do with the men on board, the Navy said.

Terrorism experts and government officials long have said they believe that
al-Qaida makes money through criminal enterprises including the drug trade.
A United Nations panel reported last month, for example, that al-Qaida had
financed some of its operations through drug trafficking.

Before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bin Laden had been sheltered in
Afghanistan by the Taliban, which had clear links to the heroin trade
through Afghanistan's huge opium poppy crops. Smaller groups linked to
al-Qaida, such as Ansar al-Islam in Iraq and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines,
also have been accused of involvement in the drug trade.

But Hoffman said Monday's seizure was the first indication that al-Qaida
was smuggling hashish, a drug made from the resin of marijuana plants that
has a long history in the Middle East.

Smuggling drugs is attractive to al-Qaida because of the huge profit
margins involved, said Jimmy Gurule, a former Treasury Department official
involved in tracking terrorist financing.

"One of the things we learned over the past two years about al-Qaida is
it's a very adaptable organization with respect not only to its terrorist
activities but also its mechanisms for raising money," said Gurule, now a
law professor at Notre Dame. "This isn't something that is a surprise, but
it's something we should be prepared to address."

It's impossible to tell how deeply al-Qaida is involved in the drug trade,
Hoffman said, because al-Qaida has become expert at hiding its money trail.

"Hardly anyone has a good handle on their finances," he said.

Congressional investigators said last week that authorities at both the
Treasury and Justice departments were struggling to get a grip on how
terrorists may be using alternative means - such as trafficking in gold and
diamonds or drugs - to raise and move financial assets.

Terrorist financiers have been looking for ways to move and conceal money
as governments in the United States and abroad have taken steps to prevent
them from using the traditional banking system.

The Decatur is part of the Navy's effort to crack down on smuggling of
drugs, weapons, oil and terrorists in the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. military also plans to sponsor a multinational exercise in the
Arabian Sea next month to practice seizing a merchant ship carrying weapons
of mass destruction. The scenario mimics the seizure of a shipment of Scud
missiles from North Korea last year, which the U.S. eventually had to
release to the buyer, Yemen.