Terrorist threat in the Tri-Border Area: myth or reality?

Military Review,  Sept-Oct, 2004  by Philip K. Abbott

Tags: Al-Qaeda, Arab, Argentine, Government, strategyterrorismU.S.

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LATIN AMERICA's Tri-Border Area (TBA), bounded by Puerto Iguazu, Argentina; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay; and Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, is an ideal breeding ground for terrorist groups. The TBA is a lawless area of illicit activities that generate billions of dollars annually in money laundering, arms and drug trafficking, counterfeiting, document falsification, and piracy. The TBA offers terrorists potential financing; access to illegal weapons and advanced technologies; easy movement and concealment; and a sympathetic population from which to recruit new members and spread global messages. While the TBA is not currently the center of gravity in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), it has an important place in the strategy for combating terrorism.

The TBA and Global Terrorism

The TBA, South America's busiest contraband and smuggling center, is home to a large, active Arab and Muslim community consisting of a Shi'a majority, a Sunni minority, and a small population of Christians who emigrated from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories about 50 years ago. Most of these Arab immigrants are involved in commerce in Ciudad del Este but live in Foz do Iguacu on the Brazilian side of the Iguacu River.

According to international terrorism expert John Price, "The economy of Ciudad del Este is dominated by illegal activity focused on smuggling contraband products, pirating software and music, and money laundering of cocaine production revenue." (1) Even though it has a population of only 300,000, Ciudad del Este has approximately 55 different banks and foreign exchange shops. The United States estimates that $6 billion a year in illegal funds are laundered there, an amount equivalent to 50 percent of the official gross domestic product of Paraguay. Carlos Altemberger, chief of Paraguay's antiterrorist unit, says terrorists partly finance their operations by remitting dollars from Ciudad del Este to the Middle East. (2)

Ambassador Philip Wilcox, former Department of State (DOS) Coordinator for Counterterrorism, testified before the international Relations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives that Hezbollah activities in the TBA have involved narcotics, smuggling, and terrorism. Many believe the TBS's Arab and Muslim community contains hardcore terrorist sympathizers with direct ties to Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian, Lebanese Shiite terrorist group; Hamas, the Palestinian fundamentalist group; the Egyptian group Islamic Jihad; and even al-Qaeda. (3) However, Arab and Muslim TBA leaders claim their community members are moderates who have lived in harmony with the rest of the population for many years and have rejected extremist views and terrorism. Most of the TBA's 20,000 Arabs and Muslims say it would be impossible for terrorists to hide in their midst and deny remittances sent abroad go to Hezbollah. A minority of Arabs and Muslims, however, make no secret about their sympathy and financial support for Hezbollah, which they say is a legitimate Lebanese political party.

Argentine officials believe Hezbollah is active in the TBA. They attribute the detonation of a car bomb outside Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires on 17 March 1992 to Hezbollah extremists. Officials also maintain that with Iran's assistance, Hezbollah carried out a car-bomb attack on the main building of the Jewish Community Center (AMIA) in Buenos Aires on 18 July 1994 in protest of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement that year. (4)

In May 2003, Argentine prosecutors linked Ciudad del Este and Foz do Iguacu to the AMIA bombing and issued arrest warrants for two Lebanese citizens in Ciudad del Este. An Iranian intelligence officer who defected to Germany told Argentine prosecutors that Imad Mugniyah was the principal suspect in the Buenos Aires bombings. (5) U.S. officials consider Mugniyah the mastermind of the 1983 suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which suggests he has direct ties to Hezbollah and Iran. (6) Argentine Jews (and many non-Jews) reportedly feel former Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem, of Syrian ancestry, accepted a bribe to conceal Iran's role in the bombings. (7) Although we cannot confirm the growing radicalization of Islamic communities in the TBA, we must take the possibility into account and closely monitor the situation.

Al-Qaeda is a network of terrorist groups scattered all over the world with a presence in practically every country. Are Osama bin-Laden's operatives also present in the TBA? Local and international media have written about al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups setting up training camps in the TBA and even having secret summit meetings in the area, although intelligence and law-enforcement officials have not corroborated these reports. The governments of the three TBA countries say terrorism is not a problem in the region and emphasize that they have never detected terrorist activity or cells there. (8) In December 2002, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and the United States agreed that "no concrete, detailed tactical information ... support[s] the theory that there are terrorist sleeper cells or al-Qaeda operatives in the TBA." (9)