DRUG RINGS LINKED TO TERRORIST

The news coming out of Washington, D.C., this week that federal authorities
have linked illegal drug operations in the United States to Middle Eastern
terrorist groups should have come to no surprise to Mississippians who have
been listening to Don Strange, this state's top drug law enforcement
officer. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that a
series of raids indicates that a methamphetamine drug operation in the
midwestern section of the United States has been shipping money back to
terrorist groups in the Middle East.

A DEA spokesman said "there is increasing intelligence information that
alleged drug sales in the United States are going in part to support
terrorists organizations in the Middle East."

It was almost two years ago that Strange, former Chief of Intelligence for
the DEA, brought some of the brightest and most experienced leaders of the
federal agency to Mississippi for a briefing for the state's top drug
enforcement experts.

The DEA brass was warning then that drug traffic was being traced from the
Middle East and even Russia to South America and to the United States. And,
much of the drug traffic then, as now, was moving from the West Coast and
from Mexico along Interstate 10 eastward through Texas, Louisiana, and
Mississippi.

Moreover, Strange, one of Mississippi's best trained and most effective
department heads, has broken records in curbing drug traffic and
confiscating millions of dollars in illicit drug dollars.

It is comforting to know that Mississippi leads the nation in its drug
enforcement operations.