Terrorism and Drugs

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Narcoterrorism is shorthand for the close ties that exist between illegal narcotics and terrorists. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) uses the term to refer to situations in which terrorist groups or their members have some part in growing, producing, transporting, or selling illegal drugs. However, the specific role that different terrorist groups play can take many forms.

The relationship between drug traffickers and terrorists is reciprocal, meaning that they influence each other. The traffickers can benefit from the military skills, weapons, and underground networks of the terrorists. Where the terrorists control large chunks of territory, the traffickers gain by being able to move around freely as well. In return, the terrorists get a steady stream of income from drug money. They also may learn useful tricks of the criminal trade, such as smuggling and money laundering.

The two groups are natural allies, because they have a lot in common. Terrorists and drug producers both tend to thrive in rugged, remote areas where government control is weak and economic conditions are poor. Both groups also make use of countries where banking regulations are lax. In addition, they often team up with corrupt officials, who can provide fake passports, customs papers, and other documents.

Many terrorists involved in the drug trade are guerrillas, self-styled soldiers who are not members of any regular army, but who wage war through unconventional means. These guerrillas often make money by forcing drug growers and traffickers to pay "war taxes." In such cases, the relationship between the two groups may be rooted in conflict rather than cooperation. Still, the groups may be brought together for a time by local family or personal ties. At other times, they may band together to fight the government when it tries to regain control of an area.

Colombia has been particularly hard hit by the terrorist acts of guerrilla groups linked to the drug trade. These groups include the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN). The FARC—the largest, best-trained, and best-equipped guerrilla group in the country—operates in the eastern lowlands and rain forest. This is the area where coca, the plant from which cocaine comes, is grown. The ELN operates in the northern and central parts of Colombia. These are growing areas for the hemp plant, from which marijuana and hashish are derived, and the opium poppy, from which morphine and heroin are derived.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, a Colombian drug trafficking group led by Pablo Escobar staged a series of vicious terrorist attacks. Amongthe victims and targets were a justice minister, an attorney general, the editor of a leading newspaper, several presidential candidates, and a commercial airliner. Escobar died in 1993, but this did not bring an end to Colombia's troubles. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, violent terrorist acts were still a daily fact of life in that country. In 2000 the U.S. government gave Colombia $1.3 billion in emergency funds to help fight the threat. However, it remains to be seen whether these funds, plus additional military aid, will stop narcoterrorism.

Around the world, several other guerrilla groups have used the potent mix of terror and drugs to advance their aims. In Peru, the Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) is an extremely violent group that tried to overthrow the government in the 1980s and 1990s. The group is based in remote areas where coca is grown, and it is thought that a source of income for them has been taxes paid by cocaine producers. In the Middle East, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) also has forced drug traffickers to pay taxes in return for protection. In Southeast Asia, guerrillas have long been involved in every stage of theopium/heroin pipeline. And on the Indian peninsula, groups such as the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) and the Sikhs have called on community members living abroad to help them smuggle heroin.

One disturbing trend is the ease with which terrorist groups from one part of the world may move into another, where they can go about their business in relative safety. For example, two Islamic extremist groups from the Middle East—Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS)—have set up camp in the border region of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. It is suspected that their illegal activities there include drug smuggling.

In Mexico, government crackdowns against the drug trade also have been met with terrorism. For example, in 2000 the police chief of Tijuana was killed as he drove to his office, two days after the government announced a tough new antidrug policy. However, these attacks seem to have been committed by drug traffickers rather than guerrilla groups. Italy, too, has seen its share of drug violence. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the Sicilian Mafia reacted to tighter government control by killing several leading prosecutors and law enforcement officers. In the early twenty-first century there is also growing concern about the dangerous mix of drugs, violence, and organized crime in parts of the former Soviet Union.

Perhaps the most notorious example of the drug-terror link, however, involves the former Taliban government in Afghanistan. In 2000 this country produced 70 percent of the world's illegal opium supply. Heroin, morphine base, and hashish produced there were sold worldwide. In fact, this flourishing drug trade was the war-torn nation's biggest moneymaker. At the same time, Afghanistan served as home base for terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network, believed to be behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. According to the DEA, bin Laden himself is suspected of being involved in the trafficking of heroin.

The relationship between the Taliban, drugs, and terrorism is complex, however. Before the attack in 2001, Taliban leaders declared heroin to be anti-Islam. They vowed to ban opium growing and to steer farmers toward crops to help feed the nation's poor. The U.S. government estimated that opium production in Afghanistan in 2001 was only about 2 percent of the amount produced there in 2000. YetU.S. officials also say the ban may have been largely a ploy to drive up opium prices by limiting the supply. In fact, the Taliban had long relied on drug trafficking as its major source of income.

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, government officials and antidrug groups in the United States have been sending a new message to teens: Drugs and terrorism go hand in hand. When you choose one, you support the other. The message seems to be having an impact. In two polls taken in late 2001, young people said they would be less likely to use illegal drugs if they knew that the drug trade helps pay for terrorism.

Crime and Drugs; Drug Producers; Drug Traffickers; Law and Policy: Foreign Policy and Drugs.

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