Mexican Drug Cartels and Islamic Terrorism: An Unlikely Alliance

According to experts, the groups that dominate drug trafficking will not put their businesses at risk.

Mexican drug cartels deal in thousands of billions of dollars. They control territory where there is no government presence and they spread their tentacles across various countries. Neither do they hesitate to recruit illegal immigrants. They behead their victims. Willing souls? Question is, would they be interested in partnering with Iranian agents and al-Qaida terrorists to attack the other side of the Rio Grande?

Last week, the U.S. government reported an alleged plot by Iranian government agents to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in Washington with the supposed involvement of a Mexican cartel, presumably the most bloodthirsty of them all: The Zetas. On the other hand, several drug trafficking experts doubt the possibility that organized crime groups are interested in partnering with Islamic terrorists.

A year and a half ago, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico rejected possible links between drug traffickers and Islamist terror cells.

According to cables leaked by WikiLeaks, in a diplomatic dispatch in February 2010, the then-ambassador Carlos Pascual said, “No known international terrorist organization has an operational presence in Mexico, and neither have there been terrorist incidents directed against U.S. personnel or interests in Mexican territory, or originating from it.” Pascual resigned last March after the release of the cables expressed criticism towards Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

According to the plot, which was denounced by the White House, Iranian citizen Manssor Arbabsiar, who is now detained, met several times with an alleged Mexican drug dealer who, in fact, was an undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Agent. The Iranians, according to Washington’s same old story, offered their supposed Mexican partners a million and a half dollars for killing the Saudi diplomat.

For Mexican writer and journalist Sergio González Rodríguez, author of several books on the phenomenon of organized crime, the bizarre story must be framed in the U.S. national security strategy for equating Mexican drug trafficking with terrorism.

“Due to the pressures from the Partnership for Prosperity and Security in North America, signed by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, the Mexican government has reformed its laws to approach a qualification of drug trafficking as a form of terrorism,” explains the expert.

At the beginning of his term in December 2006, Calderon declared a forward attack against cartels and deployed thousands of soldiers to the areas hardest hit by the mobs. Five years later, the fruits of that decision are devastating: More than 40,000 people have died in association with organized crime violence. Calderon’s strategy counted on financial and logistical support from the U.S., thanks to the so-called Merida Initiative, whose creation was led by former President George W. Bush in 2008 to combat drug trafficking in Mexico.

Far from being frightened, the seven largest cartels (Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Golfo, Juárez, Beltrán Leyva, La Familia Michoacana and Tijuana) continue to exert their power and influence. On both the northern and southern borders, organized crime imposes its law.

“The story about preparation of terrorist acts between fundamentalist Muslims and Mexican drug traffickers is part of a U.S. intelligence operation to place political pressure on both countries and to impose a military solution on the border. Terrorism is the pretext,” said Gonzalez Rodriguez.

The Blacklist

For some time, American policymakers have supported the argument for redefining drug trade as a terrorist threat. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano spoke in February about the possibility of al-Qaida allying with the Zetas to attack the United States. “We need to stand by Mexico’s side until the end of this war,” said Napolitano.

Concurring statements have not stopped since. From James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, to Michael McCaul, Republican Senator, a chorus of voices has already spoken about the terrorist threat posed by the cartels along the 1,988-mile border that the U.S. shares with Mexico. From there to being included on the terrorism blacklist there is only one step, said the president of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, last Thursday.

For now, there is already someone, Texas Governor Rick Perry for example, who wishes to send more troops to the border and utilize unmanned aircrafts for patrol.

In addition to Gonzalez Rodriguez, other experts are outspoken about drug trafficking. Jose Reveles, author of such books as “Narcoméxico,” appeals to the “logic” of the cartels to reject alliances with Islamist terrorism. “The cartels operate in areas they know and where it is possible to escape; they are not suicidal, and it is not amongst their priorities to attack the United States.” Raul Benitez, a researcher at the Autonomous University of Mexico, concurs: “The cartels want to do their business in secret; that sort of visibility is not convenient for them.”

Even U.S. intelligence and security consulting firm, Stratfor, which sides closer to the neoconservative ideology, considers it very unlikely that there would be an alliance between radical Islamists and drug traffickers, according to a report that came out last week, after complaints from the White House.

For Stratfor, cartel cooperation with terrorist groups would jeopardize the modus operandi of these gangs because they would suffer reprisals from Washington.

Mexican drug trade does not seem to need al-Qaida or any other Islamic organization to set foot in the U.S. It’s already present in over 1,000 cities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The business of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine remains buoyant. Why would it sink?