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Underlying recent allegations of collusion between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) is the oft-neglected fact that al Qaeda is not the only international terrorist network. Long before Osama bin Laden’s Islamic organization achieved notoriety through its attacks in America on Sept. 11, 2001, other terrorist groups established operational bonds with their counterparts and sponsors across the world. Such collaboration flourished in the 1990s, and members of the international terrorism community are believed to have trained in many countries, often — but not always — with local government approval. The list of countries in which such training has occurred includes: Afghanistan; Bosnia-Herzegovina; Chile; Colombia; Iran; Iraq; Lebanon; Libya; Mexico; North Korea; Pakistan; Peru; Russia; South Africa; Sudan; Syria; and Turkey.
As this indicates, reports that foreign terrorists have been operating within Colombia are neither entirely new nor particularly surprising. Colombian groups such as FARC have long been known to contract military experts and terrorists from overseas, with European terrorist organizations reported to have often brokered such deals. The Red Army Faction is believed to have been especially active in such activities, using mostly Middle Eastern contracted trainers. Former British, Israeli, and U.S. military personnel are also reputed to have been involved in such training in the past. According to Gen. Fernando Tapias, chairman of the Columbian Joint Chiefs of Staff, nationals from Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, Ecuador, El Salvador, Venezuela, Israel and Germany have been identified by FARC informants and deserters as carrying out recent training for the Columbian terrorist group.
Such statements tally with that made in March by the acting commander in chief of U.S. Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Gary D. Speer, who stated that links existed between Latin America and transnational terrorist organizations including the IRA, Hezbullah, Hamas, Islamyya al Gama’at (IG), and the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA). Speer also said that Southern Command had long been monitoring terrorist activities in the region, including such incidents as the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the Jewish-Argentine Cultural Center in Argentina in 1994 (attributed to Hezbullah), the capture of the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Peru by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movements (MRTA) in 1996, and the pattern of narco-terrorism in Colombia generally. However, The IRA training of FARC members represents an alarming development, not least as the Irish group is widely held to be among the most proficient practitioners of terrorism in the world. Moreover, if claims that such training has occurred are believed, it may cost the IRA heavily in terms of the support it has traditionally enjoyed in the United States, and lead to the organization being viewed as having a global reach.
Allegations of a FARC-IRA connection arose after the arrest of three Irishmen in Bogotá in August 11, 2001. The men, James Monaghan, Martin McCauley, and Neil Connolly, were traveling using false passports, and found to have traces of explosive on their belongings. All three were subsequently charged with training FARC members in the use of explosives. Security sources in both the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic say the men are IRA members. Monaghan is believed to have designed the IRA homemade mortar. Originally developed with Libyan help in the early 1970s, the primitive Mark I prototype has evolved into the much more sophisticated Mark 18 "barracks buster," named for its effectiveness in targeting security force bases in Northern Ireland. Monaghan’s skill in making this weapon has earned him the nickname "Mortar Monaghan." Similarly, MaCauley and Connolly are reported to be among the IRA’s best explosive experts.
Connolly is believed to have initiated contact with FARC through the Spanish terrorist group ETA five years ago, and known to be the official representative in Cuba of the Sinn Fein, IRA’s political wing. The appointment was initially denied but later admitted by the party. Sinn Fein’s President Gerry Adams claimed that Connolly was appointed without his knowledge or that of the international department of Sinn Fein, while confirming that "one of our [Sinn Fein’s] senior members asked Niall Connolly to represent the party in Cuba." When asked by Columbian authorities, Monaghan, MaCauley, and Connelly had initially insisted that they were in FARC’s semi-autonomous safe-haven as eco-tourists, but later claimed to be in Columbia to view the peace process and exchange experiences on this and the one in Northern Ireland.
Adams denied that any training had taken place and refused to attend an April hearing into any FARC-IRA connection, saying he did not want to prejudice the trial of the three captive Irishmen. U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said at the hearing that there had been a "quantum leap in the FARC’s terrorist proficiency on the ground and in urban warfare, which the Columbian authorities believe is attributable to IRA training." This improvement in FARC’s capabilities is apparent from the huge expansion in attacks in the past 18 months that has left 400 Columbian Army and police personnel dead. The attacks saw a shift to economic and urban targets as well as the increased use of car bombs — a development that has caused the death of 10 percent of the country’s bomb disposal experts since January. Columbian forces have also been increasingly targeted by ‘secondary devices’ — explosive devices used to ambush anyone responding to other, more apparent bomb threats. Longer range mobile mortars such as those pioneered by Monaghan have also recently become a new weapon in the FARC arsenal. Such strategy, tactics, and equipment bear remarkable similarities to those used by the IRA, greatly heightening the suspicion that Monaghan, McCauley, and Connolly were in Columbia for reasons other than eco-tourism or an exchange of experience on peace negotiations. Moreover, indications that the IRA retains international links with other terrorist groups do not stop in Columbia.
There have also been reported links between the Irish terrorists and their Palestinian counterparts. According to a former British Army bomb disposal expert with extensive Northern Ireland experience, the improvised explosive devices recently diffused by him in the Jenin refugee camp are identical to those he had only previously seen used by the IRA. Paul Collinson, who now works for the Red Cross, says the Palestinian devices were also placed using IRA-style tactics he had seen used in Armagh, Londonderry, and Belfast. Collinson, who has worked on bomb disposal in the Palestinian territories, as well as in Afghanistan, Columbia, and Egypt, says this is the first time he has seen IRA weaponry and tactics used outside of Northern Ireland. Links between the IRA and Palestinian groups is not a new concern for Israel. The Irish group is known to have established contacts with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the 1970s, as well as meeting with other such groups in Libya in the 1980s. Moreover, according to reports as recent as last month, the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, has asked British security services to check on movements of IRA operatives in an attempt to identify a sniper who killed three civilians and seven soldiers in 25 minutes.
Sinn Fein denies that the IRA has trained FARC, as does the Irish terrorist organization itself, claiming that the whole episode has been fabricated by those who wish to derail the peace process in Northern Ireland. Such an argument, while not implausible, fails to explain why Monaghan, McCauley, and Connolly used aliases and traveled with false passports. Such subterfuge appears unnecessary were the men there to engage in talks on a peace process. Moreover, dispatching three known explosives experts on such a mission rather than Sinn Fein politicians who are skilled in peace negotiations seems a rather curious course of action, albeit somewhat less bizarre than the notion that the three men should be engaged in eco-tourism in the heart of FARC country. For the Columbian authorities to muddy the contentious issue of their receiving U.S. aid for their war against terrorism by raising the emotive issue of a FARC-IRA connection without due cause also lends such claims a certain legitimacy. Certainly, the IRA has enough enemies to ensure that some will use the current allegations as an opportunity to inflict a serious public relations blow upon the Republican terrorists. Against this must stand the powerful, if circumstantial, evidence against the three Irishmen currently imprisoned in Columbia.
Looked at through a post-Sept. 11 prism, that the IRA would train such terrorists in America’s back yard appears tantamount to a political, and possibly military, suicide. However, the links currently being investigated appear to have been established long before terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon created a hostile strategic environment in which terrorist groups now operate. Moreover, Sinn Fein has weathered the risk of damaging it levels of support in the United States before, such as when Adams visited Cuba last December. British intelligence claim that the IRA may have earned as much as $2 million for training FARC, perhaps a conservative estimate as the Columbian terrorist group’s annual income from illicit drugs sales is estimated at $1 billion. Such financial incentive may have convinced the IRA that training FARC was worth the risk, especially if reports from Russia’s intelligence services that the Irish group has recently purchased a shipment of the new AN-94 assault rifle prove true. Such armaments do not come cheap, especially if undertaken while decommissioning selected stockpiles of existing weapons. Moreover, the FARC-held region of Columbia offers the IRA an unsurpassed training area to perfect its own weapons and tactics. This is more vital than ever now that the political expediencies of the Northern Ireland peace process effectively put the IRA's historical training areas in the Irish Republic out of bounds. The risk of the Irish authorities discovering that the IRA are engaged in terrorist training while ostensibly observing a ceasefire outweigh the benefits of the organization's engaging in such activities. Using Columbia as a testing ground carries far less risk. It is also possible that the IRA may simply have become overconfident that the support they enjoyed in America was something they could depend on whatever the case may be. Sept. 11 may have changed that forever.
From the U.S. point of view the IRA’s alleged training of FARC is of immediate concern. Latin American narco-terrorists like FARC’s are believed to be responsible for some 90 percent of the cocaine and 70 percent of the heroin sold in America. U.S. Southern Command has said that it "recognized a viable terrorist threat in Latin America long before Sept. 11," adding, "If not further exposed and removed, that threat poses a serious potential risk to our own national security as well as to our hemispheric neighbors." If the IRA, one of the world’s most dangerous and successful terrorist groups, has indeed trained FARC, that risk has multiplied exponentially. Charges that such training has occurred must be investigated thoroughly and cannot be held to ransom because of a peace process that will be put at far greater risk by any failure to move against such cross-pollination among terrorists. As such incidents show, the globalization of terrorism is larger than al Qaeda.
Selected sources
Committee on International Realtions, U.S. House of Representatives, "Summary of Investigation of IRA Links to FARC Narco-Terrorists in Columbia," April 24 2002 http://www.house.gov/international_relations/findings.htm
Maj. Gen. Gary D. Speer, United States Army, Acting Commander in Chief, United States Southern Command, "Posture Statement Before the 107th Congress", 5 March 2002. http://www.defenselink.mil/dodgc/lrs/docs/test02-03-05Speer.rtf
Thomas Hunter, "Bomb School: International Terrorist Training Camps," Janes Intelligence Review, March 1997.
Various articles from: BBC Online; Daily Telegraph (UK); Washington Post; and, Washington Times.
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