4 HELD IN DRUGS-FOR-ARMS DEAL

U.S. Says Weapons Tied To Terrorism

WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft on Wednesday announced the
arrests of four members of a right-wing paramilitary group on charges of
participating in a $25 million drugs-for-arms deal.

According to Ashcroft, agents for the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC)
sought to buy thousands of machine guns and grenades with cocaine and U.S.
dollars from an undercover FBI agent posing as an arms dealer. The State
Department has listed the AUC as a foreign terrorist organization since
September 2001.

It was the second arms-for-drugs plot that U.S. investigators say they have
uncovered recently. In Hong Kong, three men are fighting extradition to the
United States in connection with an alleged scheme to use profits from
illicit drug sales to finance the purchase of Stinger surface-to-air
missiles for Al-Qaida.

In both cases, the alleged plotters' co-conspirators turned out to be U.S.
law enforcement personnel, working undercover. Asa Hutchinson, the Drug
Enforcement Agency administrator, said the arrests confirm longstanding
U.S. claims that terrorists sometimes finance their operations through drug
sales.

``Drug traffickers and terrorists work out of the same jungle, plan in the
same cave and train in the same desert,'' Hutchinson said.

In the AUC case, FBI and DEA personnel arrested Uwe Jensen on Tuesday in
Houston. On the same day, with the assistance of Costa Rican police they
arrested Carlos Ali Romero Varela, César López and a fourth individual
identified as ``Commandante Emilio'' in San José, Costa Rica. The four are
charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to provide
material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

In the case authorities link to Al-Qaida, a Minneapolis man, born in India,
and two Pakistani nationals allegedly negotiated the sale of five tons of
hashish and 1,323 pounds of heroin with undercover agents in San Diego
earlier this year.

The three men, according to their indictment, proposed to exchange drugs
for U.S.-made Stinger missiles that they intended for Al-Qaida.

The three defendants -- Syed Mustajab Shah, Muhammed Abid Afridi and Ilyas
Ali of Minneapolis -- were arrested Sept. 20 in Hong Kong after spending
time in Pakistan, authorities said.