NARCOTICS, TERRORISM CONNECTED, U.S. FINDS

WASHINGTON -- The United States has determined that about one-third of
foreign terrorist organizations are trafficking in narcotics on a large
scale, providing authorities with "shocking" insight into how two of the
nation's most serious threats are connected, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said
Tuesday.

"Law enforcement has been aware for some time of significant linkages
between terrorism and drug trafficking. But we have not had the tools to
quantify the drugs-terrorism nexus until now," Ashcroft said in a speech
before the annual conference of the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement
Task Force.

Earlier this year, Ashcroft said, he asked federal law enforcement agencies
to draw up a list that quantifies all the major narcotics trafficking
groups who are responsible for the U.S. drug supply.

"Following extraordinary collaboration and information-sharing between
agencies, this list has been developed--and what it reveals is shocking,"
the attorney general stated. "Nearly one-third of the organizations on the
State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations appear also on
our list of targeted U.S. drug suppliers."

Cross-matching the lists is providing authorities with substantial leads in
their global war on terrorism, Ashcroft noted, as well as helping to combat
the growing problem of narco-traffickers responsible for selling cocaine,
heroin and other drugs worldwide.

Ashcroft's remarks came as U.S. authorities, working with state and local
officials and their counterparts in Mexico, announced they had arrested
more than 2,120 fugitives along the Southwest border in recent months.

Ashcroft did not elaborate on which terrorist groups are suspected of being
involved in drug trafficking.

Justice Department officials would not comment on what organizations are on
the drug trafficking list, except to say that Al Qaeda was one of them.

"They are definitely using the drug trade to finance their operations, but
it is not the major source of funding," one Justice Department official
said of Al Qaeda, which U.S. officials have said was responsible for the
Sept. 11 attacks. "They get more money from donations and trading in gold
and other precious metals. It's a serious problem, but it's hard to say
this is where we should be putting all our resources."

Specifically, the Justice Department official said, Al Qaeda and the
Taliban regime that protected it made millions of dollars from the heroin
trade in Afghanistan.