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, the phantom-like al-Qaeda chap who seems to have been sighted just about everywhere recently, from Canada to Central America. The Times quoted “law enforcement officials” to the effect that Shukrijumah had been seen meeting with Mara Salvatrucha representatives in Tegucigalpa this past July. While this and this suggest that the meeting actually occurred in May (the Times can be so sloppy), there seems to be something there. It seems that certain locations in South America have had their doors open for the bad guys for quite a while already (including for Imad Mugniyeh; gee, I wonder what he’s been up to while that crazy Abu’s been stealing all the headlines?).

A couple of thoughts. First, there are no more effective, efficient and vicious bad guys around than those who run Mara Salvatrucha, and they have an extensive and successful history of running our borders like nothing doing. I suspect that they can move anything they want into this country, whenever they want to move it. Second, I shudder to think about the politicization of groups like these. Deep down, every low-rent thug aspires to something higher, and I can’t help but think that the prospect of smuggling people and goods for money and political meaning might have some appeal for these folks. The increased militarization of the war on drugs in Central and South America can certainly be sold, to those willing to buy, as something like our aggressive conduct in the Middle East. That, plus big bags of money, might well be enough to talk these folks into helping bring someone very bad, or something very bad, or both, up north. In any event, here’s betting that when the next bad thing happens on our soil, we’ll find at least a few Central or South American fingerprints at the scene.