[UPDATE 11-19-04] For a very interesting review of Marc Sageman's book, as well as of a more scholarly monograph on Afghan-Pakistani terror links by Mariam Abou Zahad and Olivier Roy, see Steve Coll's piece from Washington Post Book World, August 2004.

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[UPDATE 11-20-04] A fascinating look at the radicalizing process in French jails for the growing population of Muslim prisoners in this article from NYT earlier this month by Craig Smith.

From the standpoint of growing self-critiques of French failure to integrate its Muslim population, particularly following the recent murder of the Dutch artist, the article is a searing indictment. It also is suggestive of why concerns about the effects of high US incarceration rates for low-level criminality should not be dismissed lightly. It further underlines some of the observations above about the Salvadoran deportees who have found their way into Mara Salvatrucha, etc.

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A couple of months ago, Bondra pointed out for us the potential for disaster lurking in the growth of Central American gangs and the increasing indications of some linkages with Middle Eastern terrorism and Al Qaeda.

The expansion of the geographic zone of attention is part of the broader recognition that the nature of "the Al Qaeda threat" is continually morphing. As Peter Bergen argues, it is not simply an organization anymore but is also a movement; that those it inspires are as or more likely to come from Europe as from majority-Muslim countries; and the means, methods and networks used to harm the US and "the West" more broadly are likely to be far more varied than what we've come to think of as the "classic" Al Qaeda modus operandi.

Of particular concern in the Western Hemisphere is El Salvador's Mara Salvatrucha. The LA Times' Kevin Silverstein has a new piece focusing on the domestic problems for El Salvador presented by the gangs, their links to the prison population in the US, especially California, and measures being taken by El Salvador to crack down on the gangs.

Government officials, including Deputy Citizens' Security Minister Rodrigo Avila, blame the violence at least in part on the deportation of nearly 12,000 Salvadorans with criminal records from the United States since 1998. Many are prison-hardened former gang members in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities who were sent back here as illegal immigrants.

"The deportations are at the core of the problem," Avila said. "Gangs here now copy the whole L.A. gang culture, the way they talk, the clothes they wear and the absolute ruthlessness."

Many deportees simply join their counterpart gangs here upon arrival, often gaining leadership roles because they are generally the most violent in the ranks, National Civil Police Chief Ricardo Menesses said in an interview.
[...]
The brutality of the gangs' crimes is increasingly horrific. [...]In September, M-18 members attacked a teenage girl in San Salvador, stabbing her in the neck and abdomen before beheading her, police said. Gang rivalries were at the root of the killing of a 16-year-old mother here last year. Gang members also killed and dismembered her 5-month-old daughter.

A number of organizatons have protested the heavy-handed tactics being used as ultimately counter-productive, and their calls for a different approach seem to have had at least a modest effect. Indiscriminate roundups had earlier resulted in all but a small percent of those brought in by the authorities actually being arrested and charged with criminal activity. More recently, the government's operations seem to be better targeted and, they claim, producing results in reduced homicides and fewer "no go" areas. And the general Salvadoran public is supportive of most anything that will limit the impact of the gangs on their lives.


The most troubling part of the story, from my view, is the dimension of alienation described, and the role of the gangs in offerng an identity to deracinated young men. They are certainly of quite a different class in terms of family income, education and social status from the alienated young Muslim migrants described by Marc Sageman (Understanding Terror Networks) as the primary energy source for Al Qaeda-type groups in Europe. But there are some unfortunate similarities as well, including the strong group identity that appears to "justify" incomprehensible levels of violence against "enemies" of the group.    more »

[UPDATE 10:30PM EST 11-30-04] John Robb has translated the Afghan terror/drug conundrum into his "Global Guerrillas"-speak.

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From AdamSmithee, a first-rate source of interesting observations on development economics:

Moral Conundrum

Afghanistan has managed to drag a fair number of people out of absolute poverty in the past two years, with some effect on a range of health indicators. One huge reason is a rebounding opium crop, which may have accounted for as much as 60% of Afghanistan's economic output in 2003. As Brad DeLong points out, if you don't buy Third World products, their makers just have to go off and do something less rewarding. In the case of Afghanistan, that's likely to throw people back into absolute poverty, and that in turn means higher mortality. Heroin addiction is terrible. But death is surely worse. Given that, how hard should we pursuing opium growers in the country?

Well it may not be how we ought to be proceeding, but it seems the way we'll claim we're proceeding is to fight the "war on drugs" as the great scourage of a free and democratic Afghanistan. Via the FT, from a press conference Nov 18 2004:

Britain, the lead nation in the anti-narcotics drive in Afghanistan, admitted that there was a risk of the opium boom re-creating the conditions that the “war against terror” was supposed to eliminate.

Bill Rammell, the British foreign office minister responsible, said Afghanistan was a “narco-economy” and that the west needed to take urgent action.

“We have always held the view that if you have a narco-economy, those are the very conditions in which terrorism breeds,” he told a press conference in Brussels.

On Wednesday the US announced an $800m plan to fight Afghanistan's ballooning opium industry a big increase in spending that reflects growing concern about the threat of the drugs trade to the fragile country.

But the UN report made it clear that such a move could further destabilise the country.

The UN's drugs and crime office suggested that the lucrative poppy crop is one of the few things keeping the lawless country from falling further into anarchy and poverty.

“Narcotics are the main engine of economic growth and the strongest bond between previously quarrelsome people,” it said. The crop is now grown in all 32 Afghan provinces.

Afghanistan's opium economy is put at $2.8bn, producing 87 per cent of the world's total supply.

Now don't get me wrong, and I'm sure we're dealing with different time periods here, but $800 million in anti-drug trade efforts is almost one-third of the drug contribution to GDP. Maybe a simple set of cash transfers would do more to get some other economic activity going than trying to stamp out 60% of the economy?

They’ve been simmering for a while, but concerns surrounding possible connections between Middle Eastern terrorist groups and Central American gangs, particularly El Salvador’s Mara Salvatrucha, seem to be gaining some real momentum. Earlier this month, the Washington Times (generally speaking, one of my least favorite publications) published this piece about Adnan el-Shukrijuma   more »