Narcoterrorism: Drugs and Violence
Narcoterrorism is understood to mean the attempts of narcotics traffickers to influence the policies of government, the enforcement of the law and the administration of justice by the systematic threat or use of violence. One of the major sources of funding for terrorist movements is the profit they can generate from the manufacture and sale of drugs. Afghanistan, for example, produces some 85 percent of the world's opium, making it the major purveyor of opium and heroin to Eurasia, if not other countries. Those revenues go in large measure to the Taliban and may also be one of Osama bin Laden's sources of revenue.
But terrorism aligned with the drug trade is also prevalent in Colombia, and has been for years. According to Kartha “The Kosovo Liberation Army in Albania and Kosovo, too, funded much of its arms purchases throughout all the Kosovar crises of 1998--2001, including the Macedonian civil war, through drug running in Europe. Nor is this linkage confined in the Islamic world to Afghanistan.” (Kartha, 2000) For a long time, and perhaps even now, Syrian operations in Lebanon comprised both support for terrorist groups and exploitation of the drug trade based upon local manufacture.
The international nature of the threats is inherent in the drug business. As Alessandro Politi, an Italian researcher, observes, even countries that are merely conduits for drugs eventually end up as consumers, with the attendant consequences. (Politi, 1999) The speed and ease with which money can move around the world today and be laundered both exemplify and heighten the possibilities for the globalization of organized crime. The connivance of banks and bank regulators is required for this to take place. Thus, the virus of corruption reaches deep into sensitive government agencies in many countries..................
