The W.o.D, Similarities of Illegal Organisations
The W.o.D, Housing
Similarities of Counter-Narcotics and -Terrorism
The traditional separation of narcotics and terrorism counter measures and agencies has gradually faded since 9/11.
The urge for increased cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence agencies is advocated on a national, regional and international level.
This can easily be seen when reviewing the many conferences, meetings and conventions signed on drug and terrorism associated security issues.
Conventions contain clauses on the necessity for cooperation on combating narcotics and terror in concert, arguing that since both networks are interlinked in practice, they are inseparable in policy considerations .
International and regional institutions advocate that ignoring the link between narcotics and terrorism will lead to the failure of defeating criminal entity.
This line of reasoning was present even before 9/11 as seen in the Tashkent conferences in 1999 and October 2000, where the need to coordinate efforts to fight drugs, crime and terrorism since they were all interlinked, was pointed out
. After 9/11, the importance of policy cooperation was advocated by the UN in conjunction with the drafting of Resolution 1373 when the Security Council noted that
“the close connection between international terrorism and transnational organised crime, illicit drugs, money-laundering, illegal arms-trafficking, and illegal movement of nuclear, chemical, biological and other potentially deadly materials,
emphasises the need to enhance coordination of efforts on national, subregional, regional and international levels to strengthen a global response to this serious challenge and threat to international security” .
Focusing on the link between narcotics and terrorism the law enforcement efforts and intelligence gathering agencies began a more developed framework for cooperation and the war on drugs and the war on terror became interlinked.
Intelligence Gathering
The premises for combining the two wars is based on the similarities of the threats and it is advocated that the tools used to combat drug trafficking and terrorism are identical .
Much of the counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism measures are dependent on intelligence gathering to receive information on networks, individuals, shipments, money laundering systems and plans of forthcoming activities or attacks.
For instance, as many of the routes used by traffickers are also used by terrorists to transport people and equipment, intelligence regarding these routes can, through well-developed interagency communication, benefit both agencies fighting narcotics and counter-terrorism units.
Bearing the cooperation of criminal networks in mind, sharing information on shipments, transports and communications between suspects can give leads related to drug trafficking, terrorism or both.
To maximise information gathering, agencies and institutions have increased their cooperation on intelligence concerning narcotics and terrorist organisations.
In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information,
DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson pointed out that the DEA Financial Investigations Section has links to aid in intelligence gathering and conduct analyses with both the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Financial Review Group, who are responsible for tracing terrorist-related money.
Additionally, the DEA Intelligence Division has created six person intelligence Response Teams that can be located worldwide with the task to assist and provide intelligence support in matters related to narco-traffickers and other trafficking groups
Also, the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) received US$900 million in 2003, to further activities such as combating narcotics production and trafficking.
Propagating the increased linkage and merger between and among drug, terrorism and other criminal groups, the INL has also increasingly begun to integrate counternarcotics programs with broader regional and multilateral law enforcement efforts such individuals.
Priority of Resources
Although much of today’s counter narco-terrorism efforts are concentrated in the Central Asian region in the proximity of the Golden Crescent, and the perceived location of several terrorist organisations, an example of the unequal attention given to the two wars is illustrated by the attitude versus Colombia in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Colombia had received much aid from the US, and the state of the country was a top US foreign policy priority.
The 2000 aid package, Plan Colombia, would grant the region US$1.3 billion of which 860 million would go to Colombia itself. Since 1999, more than half of the aid allocated to Colombia has been earmarked for the formation of the ‘First Counter-Narcotics Brigade’, a 2300-man strong unit.
The underlying policy for this aid package was made clear by one of the main advocators of the legislation who in November 2000 stated that “the primary focus of this supplemental effort is to provide for Colombia’s intensifying counter-drug effort.
As a matter of Administration policy, the United States will not support Colombian counterinsurgency efforts
They may all be involved in narco-terrorism, but the reasons for why and what element, narcotics trade or terrorism, is the dominant feature of the organisations, and if it is changing over time, remains hidden in such a broad classification.
The fact that the motivational factor for some organisations is more of less greed and in others based on political grievances constitutes a main difference for any policy that hopes to be encompassing in scope.
Thus, a one-front policy objective based on the fight against narco-terrorism does not cover the wide range of motivations presented in the crime-terror continuum and subsequently fails to deal with the narco-terrorism problem in a complete manner.
In some areas the war on drugs and the war on terror can be fought like one homogenous war, and resources in those areas are important for the success of anti-drug and anti-terrorism efforts.
In other areas such as those dealing with organisations with different underlying motivations and objectives, they remain two different wars and there is the risk that the focus on only the similarities between narco-terrorist organisations, results in the neglect of certain areas of counter measures.
Security Analysis
The focus in policymaking on the linkages between drug criminals and terrorist serves an important function to enhance effectiveness of countermeasures taken in these areas.
Moreover, the recognised connection between these networks also provides for a more holistic perspective of security analysis, enabling analysts to incorporate several factors relevant for a complete security analysis of organised crime and organised nonstate violence.
Recognising that narco-terrorism embodies the merger of two phenomena, and even actual cooperation between two criminal networks, can make security theories more encompassing and more relevant and useful for policymaking upon implementation.
Despite the ambiguous definition of narco-terrorism, the commonalities that exist between the criminal networks merit a coordinated undertaking from law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Law Enforcement
The narco-terrorism concept has also led to the merger of legal acts. The Vital Interdiction of Criminal Terrorist Organisations (VICTORY) a bill proposed in 2003 is being discussed in the United States.
The act is intended to extend the powers of the Justice Department’s mandate according to the Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) Act of 2001.
This proposed act would give the Department the right to investigate drug dealers, terrorists and narco-terrorists. It would also facilitate the indictment of drug dealers proven to have a connection to terrorist organisations and advocates harsher punishments for such individuals.
This correlation of counter-drug and counter-terrorism measures within national judicial legislations shows the view increasingly taken by policymakers that if the overlap between drug traffickers and terrorists are increasing, then policy and practical countermeasures must also overlap to effectively combat the organisations involved and block loopholes in law enforcement efforts due to lack of coordination and cooperation
Narco-terrorism as Policy?
In the case of a unification of anti-drug and anti-terrorist policy, narco-terrorism does provide a common denominator in the fight against narcotics and terrorism.
Considering the war on terror it could be assumed that links between criminal and terrorist organisations would decrease due to the unwanted attention accompanying terrorism, yet it appears as the opposite is occurring.
Due to intensified law enforcement and countermeasures both organisations have had to decentralise to remain elusive. As argued by Dishman, this has led to less control being exerted by leaders of organisations and increased involvement in otherwise off-limits activities such as the narcotics trade to gain finances.
Although the focus on the relationship and similarities of organisations is valid, it also runs the risk of obscuring the differences between organisations and focusing too much of resources available to government agencies into areas where cooperation is possible, thus leaving some important areas of anti-drug and anti-terrorism polices unattended.
The similarities of the narcotics and terrorist networks are significant, but so are their differences, and these should both dictate policy.
Even though narco-terrorism blurs the line between criminal groups, narcotic traffickers and terrorists, the result of independent or cooperative actions within the law enforcement community is likely to strike against both drug trafficking elements and terrorist organisations.
Investments in security devices and customs apparatuses can be used for the dual purpose of detecting bombs as well as narcotics. Furthermore, capacity-building programs and training of national and foreign law enforcement officials can benefit counter-crime measures be they narcotics or terrorism related.
For example, education of law enforcement officials on bomb-blast investigations will prove beneficial in the case of any bombing despite the motivation of the perpetrator. Thus, British initiatives in Afghanistan in their role as leaders of the international effort to combat the narcotics trade have trained and equipped Afghan security forces for this purpose. The skills being taught are advocated to be equally useful in combating terrorists.
Law enforcement and security equipment also have versatile uses in fighting crime. Scanners that detect hidden compartments are useful regardless of what is being hidden and databases at airports capable of crosschecking passports with international criminal databases and outstanding warrants, alert officials to narcotics traffickers as well as terrorists
It appears as tough in certain areas such as law enforcement actions, intelligence gathering, and security devices that the war on drugs and the war on terror can find a common ground for cooperation based on mutual gain.
Other areas are not as suitable for cooperation and do not produce mutual gain, such as eradication policies and political solutions to conflict, or they may simply not be perceived as mutually beneficial as with drug rehabilitation.
However, the focus on narco-terrorism that has gradually increased since the attacks on 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror, in a way threatens certain important countermeasures in both the struggles by diverting material and human resources to areas connected with narco-terrorism.
Also, by disregarding more nuanced threat models such as the crime-terror continuum developed by Makarenko and instead applying the term narco-terrorism to various criminal organisations with ties to terrorism and narcotics trafficking and thus lumping together groups like IMU and al-Qaeda or even outright mafia organisations, does little to provide for an accurate and empirically sound analysis on which to base policy.
