Transnational Terrorist and Criminal Networks Now Put Nigerian National Security at Risk

BY OKEY NDIRIBE & CHRIS OCHAYI
ABUJA—Former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Abdulrahman Dambazzau, has identified transnational criminals and global terrorist networks, which have infiltrated West African, as a serious threat to the nation’s security.

Delivering the keynote address at the National Stakeholders Summit on Security and Public Awareness, Dambazzau said the region had become a major reference point for global criminal activities, describing Nigeria as a major transit for drugs and arms trafficking.

Dambazzau said trafficking in small arms and light weapons was the major cause of global proliferation of arms, adding that when the arms found their way into the country, they were used for various acts of violence, such as armed robbery and ethno-religious conflicts.

He added: “In addition to the possibility of importation of terrorism through known global terror networks, transnational organised crimes, involving arms, drugs, human trafficking, money laundering, cyber-crimes , advance fee fraud and illegal bunkering are, indeed, posing serious security threats to Nigeria.”

He further stated that corruption had become a major threat to the nation’s security and stability.
Said he: “Much relevant to our gathering here, is the fact that corruption endangers the stability and security of our society when it undermines the institutions and values of democracy.

“Overall, corruption is both a cause and consequence of poverty and under-development and it increases the likelihood of other crimes.”

Declaring the summit open, President Goodluck Jonathan noted that the nation had been confronted with some major security challenges in recent times.

Enumerating such challenges as intra and inter party conflicts, socio-economic agitations, ethno-religious crisis, civil and organised rebellion, and outright criminality, the President reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to secure the life and property of the citizenry.

He said: “Let me reiterate that this administration remains irrevocably committed to its constitutional role of securing the lives and property of all Nigerians.

“Government is ready to do whatever needs to be done, within the scope of the rule of law, to bring about lasting peace, while also laying more emphasis on an intelligence based approach to meeting our national security challenges.

“Similarly, this administration is committed to the fulfilment of its promises of growing the economy through job creation for our teeming youths, so that they can be meaningfully engaged.”

President Jonathan, who was represented by the Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro, reminded Nigerians that “security is a shared responsibility which underscores the importance of identifying and reporting suspicious activities.”

He, therefore, urged Nigerians to be vigilant and report suspicious characters to security agencies, adding that “to facilitate this, the office of the National Security Adviser is working with the Ministry of Communication to make telephone service operators provide toll free emergency lines that are going to be very easy to remember by the public.”

The President challenged participants to come up with simple and effective strategies for raising public awareness on indicators of security threats and to emphasise the importance of reporting suspicious activity to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

In his own remarks, the Sultan of Sokoto, Abubakar Sa’ad II, said the presence of high ranking traditional rulers from across the country indicated the concern and commitment of traditional institutions to the peace and security of Nigeria.

He thanked the Federal Government for setting up the committee.

The Sultan expressed concern over the fate of report that would emanate from the summit and said, “I pray that at the end of this summit, the recommendations that would be put forward and sent to the government will not be thrown into the dust bin as so many others before this kind of summit.”

In his goodwill message, the Asagba of Asaba, Professor Chike Edozie observed that most nations in the world have gone through conflicts and wars.

“ People leave their nationalities and religion to come together on their own and wish to be together and remain as a country. We need to have done more to bring the people together so that we all merge our various traditional cultures and religions into becoming one nation” he said.

He continued: “We are happy that this has now has been recognised and we are here today to begin that journey that will lead to Nigeria becoming one nation, one people out of this diversity.”

Most speakers at the occasion condemned the activities of Boko Haram and other armed groups that have unleashed mayhem on different parts of the country.

• Others speakers at the summit who included,
• Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Shehu Abubakar Ibn Umar;
• Tor-Tiv, Chief Alfred Torkula;

• Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe;
• the representative of Oni of Ife, Oba Aderemi Adeniyi-Adedapo, Minister of Defence, Mohammed Haliru Bello and Minister of Information Labaran Maku.
• They all acknowledged that this is trying period for the nation due to its challenging security situation.

Other dignitaries who graced the occasion were the President of Nigerian Guild of Editors and General Manager/Editor-in-Chief of Vanguard Newspaper, Mr. Gbenga Adefaye; spokesperson of the State Security Services, SSS, Marilyn Ogar;

Alhaji Idi Farouk,

former Commissioner of Police, FCT, Command, Mr. Lawrence Alobi; Deputy Governor of Kogi State,

The Rest @ Vanguard

FARC Behind Deal with AQIM to Guard Sahara Trafficking Routs

South American drugs gangs are providing millions of pounds of funding for al-Qaeda terrorists by paying them to ensure the safe passage of cocaine across north Africa and towards Europe.
Islamic rebels familiar with the barren terrain of the Sahara have struck deals under which they provide armed security escorts for drug traffickers in return for a slice of their profits.

Counter-terrorism experts said that the terrorists belong to the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group, which has kidnapped a series of Westerners and killed a British tourist last year.

They warned that the money they receive from drugs gangs could be used to attract new recruits and plan terrorist attacks on European cities.

Olivier Guitta, a counter-terrorism and foreign affairs consultant, said that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Marxist rebel group, was the “force behind the agreement with AQIM”.

In the past drugs were flown or shipped from South America straight to Spain or Portugal but the introduction of more rigorous controls in those countries led FARC to change its way of operating.

” Since the routes going through Europe became much more difficult to use, FARC saw an opportunity to use the Sahel and North Africa as its new drug route,” said Mr Guitta.

“And since AQIM has a hold over the area and was already involved in major smuggling operations it made sense to offer them a deal.

“AQIM is an independent unit of al-Qaeda and does not share the monies with al-Qaeda central but is looking to pull off terror attacks on its own in Europe.”

Terrorists linked to al-Qaeda in north Africa have made $130m (£84m) from helping drugs gangs and kidnap ransoms since 2007, according to one report citing an investigation by the Algerian government.

The Rest @ In Depth Africa

Viktor Bout is In US Custody

By Samuel Rubenfeld

Viktor Bout, the alleged Russian arms dealer whose reported escapades inspired the film “Lord of War,” pleaded not guilty in a New York court to charges that he agreed to supply Colombian terrorists with weapons with the intent to kill Americans.

The plea came only hours after Bout was extradited from Thailand, after two years of legal wrangling. Bout, a former Soviet air force officer, arrived Tuesday night at Westchester County Airport in New York.

Bout runs an air-cargo business that he has said specializes in bringing legitimate cargo into conflict zones, but U.S. authorities labeled him as the world’s most notorious arms dealer for using his business to fly weapons across the world.

Suspected clients include Liberia’s Charles Taylor and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi; Bout’s life was the subject of a bestselling book.

“The so-called ‘Merchant of Death’ is now a federal inmate,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara at a press conference, referring to a nickname Bout received for his activity over the years. “No one is beyond the reach of the law.”

At the press conference, Bharara said Bout was secretly recorded advocating that his weapons be used to kill Americans and that he supported FARC’s goals.

He was added to the specially designated nationals list at the Office of Foreign Assets Control in July 2004 for weapons trafficking activity in Liberia, and the indictment says 30 more companies and four individuals linked to him were added in April 2005.

According to the indictment, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency agents, working undercover with confidential sources posing as agents of the Colombian rebel group FARC, convinced Bout to sell them weapons including 700 to 800 surface-to-air missiles, 5,000 AK-47 firearms, unmanned drones and land mines, for the purpose of killing Americans. The conspiracy with the agents lasted from November 2007 through March 2008, when he was arrested at a hotel in Bangkok.

He was charged with conspiring to kill U.S. nationals, conspiracy to kill American officers and employees, conspiring to use and acquire anti-aircraft missiles, and conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. If convicted on all four counts, Bout faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, or a minimum of 25 years in prison.

His extradition from Thailand was fought to the end by the Russian government, and it could imperil U.S.-Russian relations. The Russian Foreign Minister called the extradition an “extreme injustice,” saying his government will defend him “by any means.”

Also at the press conference, Bharara announced the guilty plea of Andrew Smulian, who faced the same four counts as Bout’s associate. He agreed to cooperate with the investigation, and faces a maximum of life in prison, or a minimum of 25 years.

“Viktor Bout has been indicted in the United States, but his alleged arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts in Africa has been a cause of concern around the world. His extradition is a victory for the rule of law worldwide,” said Attorney General Eric Holder in a statement.

Read the indictment below:

Indictment document

The Rest @ the Wall Street Journal

Drug Traffiicking and Ilyas Kashmiri Intel Trip to UK

Morocco dismantled a drug-trafficking network with branches in Latin America, Europe and Africa, the interior ministry said on Tuesday (October 12th).

Police arrested 7 suspects and seized large quantities of money, cocaine, cannabis and tear gas. The investigation revealed that the drugs entered Morocco from Mali.

The group is also suspected of links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Thanks to Zawya for notice of the article in Magharebia

-Shimron Issachar


Ilyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda commander, arranged the trip to meet ‘contacts’ as part of plans for an attack on a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of Mohammed.

The meeting between Kashmiri’s associate, a U.S. citizen called David Coleman Headley, and two British men allegedly happened in August 2009 in Derby.

According to U.S. court documents, Kashmiri said the men would provide Headley with ‘money, weapons and manpower’.


The details have emerged as part of the case against Headley, 50, who was arrested last year in Chicago on his way to Pakistan to hand over surveillance videos to terrorists.


It is believed that one-eyed Kashmiri is behind the recent terror alerts in Europe, sparked by intelligence that he had boasted about sending terrorists to Britain and Germany.


The revelations come as French Interior Minister

@ World Analysis

New Yorker Tareq Mousa al-Ghazi Convicted of Arms Trafficking

By BENJAMIN WEISER

Published: March 17, 2009

A Palestinian-born businessman was convicted in New York Tuesday on charges that he conspired with the Syrian arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar in a plot to sell weapons, including 15 surface-to-air missiles, to a Columbian terrorist organization.

The businessman, Tareq Mousa al-Ghazi, was told that the arms would be used to kill American military officers, the evidence showed.

Mr. Ghazi, 62, is the third man found guilty in the plot, which involved an elaborate sting operation run by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which used informants who posed as middlemen and said they were seeking the weapons for a Columbian rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

Prosecutors said the men also agreed to sell 4,000 grenades, nearly 9,000 assault rifles and thousands of pounds of explosives to the FARC for a profit of more than $1 million.

Mr. Ghazi was acquitted of a broader charge, conspiring to kill Americans generally. But he was convicted of three conspiracy counts, including the plot to kill American military officers and providing material assistance to a terrorist group.

Mr. Kassar, who the authorities say had been involved in arms trafficking since the 1970s, was convicted along with an associate in November and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The associate, Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, received 25 years in prison.

Mr. Ghazi faces a minimum of 25 years in prison and could receive a life term when he is sentenced by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of Federal District Court in Manhattan.

Mr. Ghazi’s lawyer, Marc A. Agnifilo, said he would appeal. At trial, he argued that his client had been entrapped by the government, lured into the plot as a way for the government to apprehend Mr. Kassar.

But prosecutors denied that, saying Mr. Ghazi had been a willing and ready participant. “He did everything he could to get the deal done and get paid,” a prosecutor, Boyd M. Johnson III, told the jury.

Jurors interviewed after the verdict said they spent more than a day discussing the question of entrapment, but ultimately rejected it after receiving clarification on the law from the judge.

The Rest @ The New York Times

Chekry Harb of Hizbullah is Busted

COLOMBIA : US AND Colombian investigators have dismantled an international cocaine smuggling and money-laundering ring that allegedly used part of its profits to finance Hizbullah, the Lebanon-based Shia militia.

• After a two-year investigation, authorities have arrested at least 36 suspects in recent days, including an accused Lebanese kingpin in Bogota, Chekry Harb, who acted as the hub of an unusual alliance between South American cocaine traffickers and Middle Eastern militants, Colombian investigators alleged.
  

Authorities accuse Mr Harb of being a "world-class money-launderer" whose ring washed hundreds of millions of dollars a year, from Panama to Hong Kong, while paying a percentage to Hizbullah.

• Mr Harb was charged with drug-related crimes in a sealed indictment filed in Miami in July, but terror-related charges have not been filed.
• The suspects allegedly worked with a Colombian cartel and a paramilitary group to smuggle cocaine to the US, Europe and the Middle East.
• Mr Harb travelled to Lebanon, Syria and Egypt and was in phone contact with Hizbullah figures, according to Colombian officials.

"The profits from the sales of drugs went to finance Hizbullah," said Gladys Sanchez, lead investigator for the special prosecutor's office here. "This is an example of how narco-trafficking is a theme of interest to all criminal organizations, the FARC, the paramilitaries and terrorists."

FARC is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the guerrilla group that was alleged to have had links with the IRA.

Iran, a Hizbullah sponsor, and donations from the Lebanese diaspora are two sources for a multimillion-dollar budget that pays for the militia's armed and political wings and social projects such as hospitals in Beirut.

However, investigations have shown that Hizbullah also funds itself through:

• drug dealing
• arms trafficking
• contraband smuggling
• other rackets in the Americas, Africa and elsewhere.
  

Western anti-terror agents have expressed concern about signs of an increasing Hizbullah presence in South America.

• In June, the US Treasury Department designated two Venezuelans of Lebanese descent, one a diplomat, as Hizbullah financiers and supporters.
• The case began as a money-laundering investigation, but agents discovered the alleged links between Mr Harb and Hizbullah operatives as they followed the money.
• Harb's group allegedly paid Hizbullah 12 per cent of its profits, investigators said, without giving a dollar figure.

- (LA Times, Washington Post Service)

The Rest @The Irish Times

Biote replaces Dabo as Entrior Minister in Guinea-Bissau shake up

BISSAU, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Guinea-Bissau President Joao Bernardo Vieira, who faces international pressure to crack down on drug-trafficking gangs in his small, impoverished West African country, has replaced his interior minister.

Baciro Dabo, who had served only six months in the post, was substituted by Certorio Biote as internal administration minister, according to a presidential decree issued late on Tuesday and published by local media on Wednesday.

Dabo, seen as one of the few close allies of Vieira in the government formed in April after weeks of political crisis, was appointed an adviser to the president.

No reason was given for the change but Vieira had recently faced intense political pressure from within the ruling government coalition to replace Dabo.

The Social Renewal Party (PRS), which with the United Social Democratic Party (PUSD) and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) had formed the April government, insisted that by rights it should be given the interior ministry post as part of a power-sharing agreement.

The new minister Biote is a leading PRS member.

Although observers attributed the change to internal politics, the interior ministry job is seen as crucial to efforts to fight drug-smuggling by Latin American cartels using Guinea-Bissau as a staging post for trafficking.

The Rest @ Reuters Africa

We cannot verify this source as reliable. It claimes to be based on channel four news somewhere, but his post hit the web on 5 October, 2007. I corraborates earlier reports about Ginnea Bissau, and gives specific locations.

-Shimron

Friday 5 October 2007, 7.35pmColombian drugs traffickers have taken advantage of one of the world's poorest countries and turned it into the main transit point for hundreds of tons of cocaine smuggled into Europe every year.
article continues below...

Unreported World reports from Guinea Bissau in West Africa, and reveals the astonishing extent to which Colombian drugs traffickers have taken advantage of one of the world's poorest countries and turned it into the main transit point for hundreds of tons of cocaine smuggled into Europe every year.

With chronic poverty, rampant corruption and almost no police or customs, the Colombians have virtually "bought" the country, flooding it with drugs money and creating Africa's first "narco-state".Reporter Kate Seelye and Producer Edward Watts begin their journey in the country's run-down capital, Bissau.

• Traveling at night and trying to avoid the ubiquitous armed security guards, the team is shown several mansions owned by Colombian drug dealers who are using Guinea Bissau as a warehouse - storing the drugs until they are distributed to various destinations in Europe.
• Much of the cocaine is flown into the Bijagos islands - just off the coast - and the team travel to one island in particular, Bubaque, which has an old, Portuguese-built airfield which they've been told regularly receives flights from Colombia carrying massive amounts of cocaine.
• The last journalist who tried to film the airfield was arrested and beaten, so Seelye and Watts have to stay undercover, posing as game fishers.
• They find the runway, which is several kilometers long.
• One local tells them that many villagers are involved in the operations, helping to unload the drugs to earn money.
• He also claims that the police are protecting the operation and that government officials often turn up to collect crates of cocaine.
• Back in Bissau, the team meets a local human rights activist in hiding after he received death threats when he accused the authorities of cooperating with the traffickers.
• Mario claims that he has information proving that the authorities are cooperating with the traffickers and tells Seelye that for foreigners to come in with hundreds of kilos of cocaine, buy large mansions and move freely around the city they must be receiving some kind of official protection.
• To check out his claims, the team makes contact with someone inside the secret services. He tells Unreported World that because of the poverty of the country, everyone is involved in drug trafficking - from businessmen through to government ministers, the military and the police.
• He says that with so much money at stake, different branches of the military are likely to fight over the spoils...and an already failed state could fracture even further.
• The team arranges an interview with Prime Minister Martinho Ndafa Cabi - who tells them that fighting drugs is a priority, but that as a fragile country with no resources, it needs help from the international community to fight this growing problem.
• However, Unreported World shows that while the anti-drugs chief struggles to work without any usable vehicles, many government officials are traveling around in the latest Mercedes limousines.
• As the team leaves West Africa, it's clear that without intervention Guinea Bissau faces a future as a state effectively run by the narco-traffickers and Europe will be flooded with ever more cocaine.

The Rest @ Unreported World

MAOC-N Formed, FARC OPerating in Africa?

By Axel Bugge
LISBON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Seven west European countries on Sunday launched an agency to tackle the ever-changing routes whereby South American cocaine finds its way onto European streets, particularly via West Africa.

The Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre - Narcotics (MAOC-N) will help national authorities work together to catch cocaine shipments, often through high stakes operations on the open seas.

• Cocaine use has tripled in Europe in the past decade to become the second most used drug in Europe after cannabis and the vast majority of it passes into the EU through Iberia -- Spain and Portugal.
  
• "We are the Atlantic border of Europe," Portuguese Justice Minister Alberto Costa said during a ceremony to inaugurate the agency. It was signed by Portugal, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Britain and the Netherlands.
• About 70 tonnes of cocaine was seized by Spain and Portugal in 2006 out of about 100 tonnes seized in the whole of Europe.
• The decision to establish the agency was in large part a reaction to the growing use of West Africa by South American drug runners as a staging post to Europe.
• "Concern about the growing importance of the African western coast in this trade is one of the raisons d'etre of this centre," said Costa.
• Law enforcement authorities in Portugal have pointed to Nigeria and especially Guinea Bissau as countries South American cocaine passes through on its way to Europe.

COLOMBIANS IN GUINEA BISSAU

• Arrests of Colombians in Guinea-Bissau have prompted concerns that the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) left-wing guerrilla group has established itself there in order to extend drug financing of its operations at home.
• "Whether they are FARC members of not I couldn't say for sure, but clearly we know there are Colombians down there (in West Africa)," said Tim Manhire, the executive director of the new agency. Manhire said this was one angle the agency would pursue with U.S. authorities that are more familiar in dealing with Colombian militants in their use of the drug trade to finance conflict. The U.S. has observer status at the agency.
• "Clearly we will be looking to work with our American colleagues at trying to intervene in that environment," Manhire said.
• The price of cocaine has fallen sharply in Europe in recent years, suggesting more of it is reaching Europe, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addicition, which is also based in Lisbon.
  The Rest @ Reuters Africa