Terror groups relocating to US's backyard - "If I were al-Qaeda, I would be setting up in Venezuela right now."
news.ft.com By Andy Webb-Vidal in Miami Published: March 4 2003 19:10 | Last Updated: March 4 2003 19:10
The US faces a growing risk from both Middle Eastern terrorists relocating to Latin America and terror groups from the region, a top US military official has warned.
General James Hill, Commander of US Southern Command, told Latin American military officers and regional intelligence analysts in Miami on Tuesday that groups such as Hizbollah, the militant Shia Muslim group, had established bases in Latin America.
These groups were taking advantage of smuggling hotspots such as the "tri-border area" joining Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and Venezuela's Margarita island to channel funds to terrorist groups round the world.
US officials are also worried that weak state institutions are making the region a haven for operatives affiliated to groups such as al-Qaeda who may flee the Middle East in the wake of a war in Iraq.
Security experts say no specific governments in the region can yet be considered "accomplice states" for harbouring terrorists but border and immigration controls must be tightened.
Fernando Falcón, a former Venezuelan state security police chief, said: "If I were al-Qaeda, I would be setting up in Venezuela right now."
Gen Carl Freeman, president of the Inter-American Defence Board, said parts of Latin America were potential rest-and-recuperation hideouts and stop-off points before entry to the US. "Latin American countries are vulnerable," he said. "Terrorists will find the weak link in the chain and take advantage."
Gen Hill also warned that the long-running, drug- fuelled conflict in Colombia was spilling over its borders. "There were more terrorist attacks last year in Colombia alone than in all the other nations in the world combined. This is a battle that must be fought together. If we don't, I fear we risk winning the battle in Colombia and losing the war in the rest of the region."
The warning comes as the strongest signs emerge that the Colombian conflict is becoming enmeshed with increasingly violent political tensions in Venezuela.
Two powerful bombs damaged the Colombian and Spanish diplomatic missions in Caracas last week. The attacks came shortly after Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez criticised Colombia, Spain and the US for meddling in Venezuela's "internal affairs".
Last weekend near their shared border, the Colombian and Venezuelan military defused a truck-bomb several times larger than one that killed 36 at a club in Bogotá.
Mr Chávez said this week that the suspected embassy bombers had been "identified" as linked to opposition groups bent on denigrating him and pinning the blame on his government.
However, intelligence sources in Miami said they suspect the perpetrators were linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) or a group on the fringes of Venezuela's state security police.
Colombia's state security police said yesterday it was investigating the passage of rebels from Farc, including its chief, Manuel Marulanda, across the border into Venezuela.
The deepening insecurity in Venezuela comes as the US steps up its training of the Colombian army in its war against Farc.
Three US citizens working under a US Defense Department contract are being held as "prisoners of war" by Farc after being captured last month.
The US is understood to have agreed to dispatch "intelligence assistance teams" to the Colombian military, although it is not permitted to maintain more than 400 US troops in Colombia, a cap designed to prevent "mission creep".
Robert Steele, a former deputy director of US Marine Intelligence and a private sector adviser, said US resources should be better used to help avert Latin American economic crises that could breed radical political groups. "We have cold war mindsets that are not adequate for today. The US thinks of Latin America as a benign backyard. They are wrong. It is a nightmare ready to go north, and the Americans don't understand that."