TERRORISTS SAID TO BE GETTING AID IN BALKANS

Crime Gangs That Control The Smuggling Routes Are Making Their
Infiltration Easier

BELGRADE, SERBIA - A hidden alliance between terror networks and
organized crime gangs that control heavily used smuggling routes in
the Balkans is making it easier for terrorists to infiltrate Western
Europe, according to law enforcement officials and intelligence experts.

In addition, prosecutors in Serbia believe that in some cases the
money earned by people traffickers is used to support terrorist
activities in Europe, which has been hit by several major terrorist
attacks in the last two years, with many others prevented by police raids.

A key problem is lax border controls throughout the region. Many
borders, such as the one between Romania and Serbia, are wide open to
gangs that smuggle people, heroin and goods.

Europe's battle to contain the spread of international terrorism has
been hobbled by such porous borders, which each year allow tens of
thousands of undocumented immigrants to enter. So many people are
sneaking into Europe that authorities admit they do not know exactly
who resides in their countries, complicating the effort to prevent
more terrorist attacks.

"This is a paradise for al-Qaida," said Marko Nicovic, former police
chief in the Serbian capital Belgrade and a director of the
International Narcotic Enforcement Officers Association. "For Europe,
it can be a disaster at any time because the authorities don't know
who is there and they don't know who is who. The attacks in Madrid
and London showed that."

Traveling freelyOnce illegal migrants reach Serbia overland from
Eastern Europe, police say they can easily cross into Bosnia and then
Slovenia, thus entering the European Union. At that point, they can
take advantage of weak or nonexistent border controls to travel
freely to France, Spain, Germany and other countries on the continent.

Police officials believe that most of the migrants are law-abiding
people looking for work, but they caution that the migration gives
terrorist gangs a way to move sleeper cells into the West while also
fueling tensions between Western Europe's Muslims, the fastest
growing minority on the continent, and the rest of society.

These tensions surface in a number of ways: the deadly attacks on
transit systems in Madrid and London, intense rioting in France,
death threats against secular politicians in the Netherlands, and
legal battles over the right to wear Muslim scarves and headgear to
public schools.

While smuggling gangs are using Serbia as a transit point, some
Muslim militants seems to have established a base in neighboring Bosnia.

Officials warn that several hundred militants who came to Bosnia to
fight on behalf of Muslims there during the war in the 1990s have
remained in the country to attack the West.

In October, police in Bosnia uncovered an apparent plot to blow up
the British Embassy and found a large cache of weapons and explosives
along with propaganda vowing to retaliate for the
U.S.-and-British-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A Swede and a Dane were also arrested in that raid, and there were
follow-up arrests in Sweden that suggested the Bosnian extremists had
operational ties to Western Europe, investigators said.

Disturbing Pairing

Magnus Ranstorp, a specialist at the Swedish National Defense College
who testified before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States, said the presence of Islamic militants inside
Bosnia makes it an attractive gateway into Europe for terrorists.

"They came in ten years ago, that was the first warning signal, it
was the embryo of what became al-Qaida in Europe," he said. "The
Iranians are supporting activity there, and the Balkans have become
the crossroads where we see the merger of Islamic extremist groups
who reach out to organized crime groups."

Ranstorp said well-established organized crime networks in the region
provide the terrorist gangs with routes for people smuggling and with
phony identification documents.

"People being smuggled in add to the security threat," he said. "Most
are economic migrants but hand-in-hand with that are people in
organized crime who allow terrorism to be possible. They move in the
same circles and need the same things. If you want to tackle
terrorists, you have to tackle the supporting environment, the
organized crime rings and the human trafficking rings."

The migrants enter Europe in many ways. Some travel on land through
Serbia and the other countries of the former Yugoslavia.

Others take trawlers or dilapidated fishing boats across the
Mediterranean bound for southern Spain or Italy. Still others simply
fly into the continent's many hub airports.

'New generation of jihadis'A large number of immigrants formally
apply for political asylum in their new countries, giving them the
right to a legal review that can take years. Others destroy their
identity documents, making it difficult for authorities to determine
their nationality.

Many come from predominantly Muslim countries like Morocco, Pakistan
and Afghanistan where jihadis committed to waging holy war against
the West are active. This sentiment has grown in ferocity since the
United States and Britain invaded Iraq two years ago, according to
analysts and enforcement agents.

"There is clear, unmistakable evidence that the level of terrorist
activity that has killed and injured people has soared to
unprecedented levels since we invaded Iraq," said Larry Johnson, a
former CIA agent and State Department counter-terrorism specialist
now working in the private sector.

"Iraq is creating a new generation of jihadis looking for places to
live in Europe," Johnson said, "and they have this festering
resentment that is usually at the core of terrorism. They will take
up residence with existing communities or form new ones in Europe.

"It doesn't augur for a great future."

Serbian investigators maintain they have uncovered a prime example of
the cozy relationship between terrorism and people smugglers. It
involves a Bangladeshi suspect believed by prosecutors to be making
more than $150,000 per week bringing people into Western Europe
through clandestine routes.

Training camps in BosniaMioljub Vitorovic, the Serbian special
prosecutor for organized crime cases, said he believes, but cannot
prove, that some of this money was being paid to support the families
of suicide bombers who have carried out attacks in Europe. He also
believes a number of jihadis from Bangladesh have gathered at
training camps inside Bosnia.

The prosecutor complained that the suspect, whom he declined to name,
appears to have some high-level protection because he has been able
to flee whenever police are closing in.

Prosecutors in several countries are gathering evidence about the
gang, he said.

"This is a huge case involving Sri Lankans, Pakistanis and
Bangladeshis, and the whole region is looking for the leader of the
operation, who is this Bangladeshi," Vitorovic said. "He was involved
during the Bosnian war and he's using his connections to bring people
across the borders. We have information about the money he is making.
This is from listening to his mobile phone conversations."

He said he had warned intelligence officials in Western Europe about
the threat posed by this people-smuggling operation but was ignored.

That changed, he said, after the July 7 suicide attacks on London's
transit system, carried out by British Muslims linked to overseas
groups, revealed how dangerous the situation had become.

"Now they are paying much more attention to the situation here," he said.

'Using All Channels'

Serbian Border Police concede they are outmanned and outgunned in the
losing battle against well-organized smugglers.

"It's very easy for them to cross the Danube," said Col. Dusan
Zlokas, chief of the Serbian Border Police. "We need more boats, we
need radar, we need thermal imaging, we need binoculars with night
vision, we need everything. We don't have the technical capacity to
provide border security."

He cited the arrest in Serbia in March of a Moroccan accused of
taking part in the deadly 2004 attacks on the Madrid train system
that killed nearly 200 people as proof that international terrorists
are using Serbia as a transit point.

"The biggest number of recruited terrorists is coming from this
illegal immigrants community," he said. "It is a very vulnerable
society and easy to recruit in. For sure, this jeopardizes Western
Europe and the U.S.

"This is the crossroads of the trade in illegal immigrants, weapons
and drugs and no one can say terrorists cannot pass. They are using
all channels."