Are Latin America's drug cartels giving Al Qaeda a lift?

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gsvol

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According to UN reports, nearly 60 percent of the cocaine sold in Europe transits through weak West African states such as Mali, Niger, Mauritania, and Guinea Bissau – a flow of cash and contraband that undermines the credibility of each country’s ability to govern itself.

As many of these same countries are now becoming a haven for a shadowy group calling itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), there are growing concerns that Islamist radicals and Latin American drug cartels may be working together, both to enrich themselves and to weaken the law enforcement capability of those West African states.
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When it comes to traffickers use of planes between West Africa and Latin America, US military experts say there is a clear potential threat to American security. “We know what those planes are carrying across the Atlantic to Africa. But what goes back [on those planes] to [Latin] American shores?” says one US military official. “You know what the condition of the [US] southern borders are. You see the beginning of a process of thought.”
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Last month, three suspects from Mali were extradited from Ghana to the United States to face charges of offering Al Qaeda protection to move cocaine from West Africa, through the Sahara, and up to Spain. The three suspects, Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure, and Idriss Abelrahman, told DEA informants that they were members of Al Qaeda’s North African branch, and they could protect drug shipments at a fee of $4,200 per kilo.
 

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