Terror groups raise funds through drugs: DEA
ISRAEL: Nearly half of the 42 groups considered by the United
States to be terror organisations fund their activities through drug
trafficking, a top US official said in Israel.
The Drug Enforcement Administration's Michael Braun told a conference
on "The Global Impact of Terrorism", organised by the International
Institute for Counter-Terrorism, that the DEA "linked 18 of the 42
officially designated Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO) to drug
trafficking activities of some sorts."
The DEA's assistant administrator, chief of operations, told
delegates the phenomenon was due to the fact that state support for
terrorism had receded, and that terror organisations - Al-Qaeda in
particular - have "shifted from a corporate structure to a franchise
structure."
Braun said nothing was more profitable than drugs in raising cash for
such groups. The United Nations estimates that narcotics trafficking is
worth 322 billion dollars annually across the globe, and 65 billion
dollars alone in the United States, according to federal figures.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are "the case study
of this evolution," Braun said. According to the DEA, the group's
drugs-related activities bring in between 500 million and a billion
dollars annually, making it as much a drugs cartel as a terror
organisation.
"That's what the Taliban are doing now in Afghanistan," Braun added.
"They are taxing farmers, but we have indications that they started
providing security. That's what happened to the FARC 15 years ago."
The DEA Internet website says Braun, a former US Marine who served in
Vietnam, heads the agency's worldwide drug enforcement operations across
the United States and in 58 countries.
"We'll have to deal with more and more hybrid" organisations in the
future, Braun told the conference in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya.
"When your job takes you to the swamps to hunt snakes, you can end up
taking crocs too - they live in the same place."
Herzliya, Monday, AFP |