U.S. FOILS SWAPS OF DRUGS FOR WEAPONS

Ashcroft Announces Arrests In Two Cases

U.S. officials announced yesterday that they had foiled two separate 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 that they planned to sell to al Qaeda.

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 stanch 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 D. 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 (DEA), said at a Washington news conference with Ashcroft,
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and other officials yesterday.

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, 2001, attacks, has been filed against defendants
including John Walker Lindh -- who pleaded guilty to aiding the Taliban --
and the alleged members of al Qaeda sleeper cells in Lackawanna, N.Y.,
Portland, Ore., Detroit and Seattle.

According to a federal indictment unsealed in San Diego yesterday, the two
Pakistani nationals and a naturalized U.S. citizen, who has lived in
Minneapolis, were indicted on Oct. 30 for allegedly offering to trade 5
metric tons of hashish and 600 kilograms of heroin with 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' anti-aircraft missiles . . . to members of the Taliban, an
organization which the defendants indicated was the same as al Qaeda." The
meetings with the men were taped, according to Ashcroft.

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 on 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 four
suspects allegedly discussed exchanging drugs for weapons.

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

U.S. authorities said the four suspects believed 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.

The sting included a bogus "PowerPoint" computer presentation given to AUC
representatives that showed the weaponry. Later on, in April, U.S. agents
allowed one of the prospective buyers to inspect samples 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 unnamed defendant known only as "Commandant
Emilio." The four were charged in federal court in Houston with conspiracy
to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to provide material support and
resources to a foreign terrorist organization -- offenses punishable by as
much as life in prison.

Jensen was arrested on Tuesday in Houston. He said during a federal court
appearance yesterday that he is Danish but with U.S. citizenship. The three
others were arrested on 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.

The AUC has long been named by advocacy groups as the worst perpetrator of
human rights abuses in Colombia, including carrying out executions and
other operations against leftist guerilla groups at the behest of the
Colombian army.

In separate moves earlier this year, Ashcroft announced indictments against
members of both the right-wing AUC and the leftist guerrilla group FARC, or
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

U.S. investigators have said since Sept. 11, 2001, that they have uncovered
several schemes by terrorist associates to raise money through drug sales.
"Drugs are the currency of terrorists," said U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby
of Houston, who was at yesterday's news conference. "This is the medium of
terrorism in the 21st century."

In the largest recent case, dubbed Operation Mountain Express, participants
in a massive methamphetamine ring allegedly sent millions of dollars to the
Hezbollah terror organization. About 100 people were arrested in 10 cities
in January as a result of the probe, which also found evidence of close
ties between Mexican drug-trafficking organizations and Arab American
organized crime groups in New York, Michigan and Canada.