[marden]

FBI fears Mafia, al Qaeda 'nexus'
October 2, 2006

ASSOCIATED PRESS
The FBI's top counterterrorism official harbors many concerns: weapons of mass destruction, undetected homegrown terrorists and the possibility that old-fashioned mobsters will team up with al Qaeda for the right price.
Though there is no direct evidence of organized crime collaborating with terrorists, the first hints of a connection surfaced in a recent undercover FBI operation. Agents stopped a man with reputed mob ties from selling missiles to an informant posing as a terrorist middleman. That case and other factors are heightening concerns about mobsters teaming with Osama bin Laden's followers.
"We are continuing to look for a nexus," said Joseph Billy Jr., assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division. "We are looking at this very aggressively."
The new strategy involves an analysis of nationwide criminal investigations, particularly white-collar crime, side by side with intelligence and terrorist activity.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/...0611-7409r.htm

When we can no longer trust organized crime to stand up for America, all is lost.

And some of you thought a joint venture between Saddam and al Qaeda was out of the question?

I hope you are all starting to see that anybody will form up with anybody to achieve their goal.

NO MATTER WHAT THEIR PHILOSOPHIES MAY BE.

[Dakar]

Somehow I don't think I see those greasy italians turning on us.

[Millennium]

Al-Qaeda forming links with organized crime? This doesn't seem too likely. Their MOs (modi operandi?) are too different.

Organized crime generally seeks to avoid drawing attention to itself: raids are bad for business. Terrorism is flashy and attention-grabbing by design: you can't dominate someone through fear unless they know there's something to fear. The Mafia wouldn't want to go high-profile like the terrorists do, but the terrorists would quickly get bored with the Mafia's lower-profile methods. It's just not a match that would work very well.

[G Barnett]

Not only that, but the folks with the Al Qaida mindset would tend to be even more hardass on the sort of things that organized crime makes all of its money off of, so again, it just don't add up.

[nonhuman]

Additionally, Al Qaeda's agenda just wouldn't mesh with the mafia's. The mafia doesn't want to destroy America or American society; if they did that it would be awfully difficult for them to turn a profit.

[Nicko]

spread da fear.

[marden]

I want to go on record as saying this because it is proven time and time again and I'm hoping one of these days some of you fellows will get it.

Never discount the possibility that anybody could join forces with anyone, despite their philosophical differences, if their short term objectives are compatible and they see a way to emerge from the union at least no worse off than before.

[itai195]

I'd think the mafia's short-term objectives would include staying the heck away from all the attention terrorists attract to themselves and their associates. But eh, I guess I'm glad the FBI is doing what they can as long as they are prioritizing reasonably.

[marden]

Originally Posted by itai195

I'd think the mafia's short-term objectives would include staying the heck away from all the attention terrorists attract to themselves and their associates.

Any association they'd have would preferably stay obscured, as long as it was beneficial to them and they were no worse off than before.

The attention given to terrorists does not mean we know and see all the terrorist activity.

The Mafia knows how to live in the shadows. So do the terrorists.

[marden]

Here's an example.

Narco-Trafficking: Two Reports from the Balkans
Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis - July 17, 2006

Changing Smuggling Routes in Eastern Europe and FYROM Highlight Links Between Mafia and Jihadists

From GIS Station South-Eastern Europe. A UN police surveillance operation conducted in Pristina, the provincial capital of the Albanian-occupied province of Kosovo, in January 2006 discovered that several French Islamists of Moroccan background, who had fled from the French police following the Autumn 2005 ghetto riots in France, were being protected in a "Wahhabi safe house" in the center of Pristina. According to the officer who took charge in the surveillance operation, the parents of the Albanian Wahhabi who allowed the men to hide there were terrified because of the kind of "responsibilities" the son had gotten involved with by joining the "brotherhood".

A couple of months earlier, on October 18, 2005, a Turkish citizen (Erdogan T.) was arrested in his Albanian-licensed Jeep as he tried to enter the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) at the Kafasan border crossing on Lake Ohrid. He had one kilogram of cocaine, more than four kilos of heroin and a half kilo of hashish, all packed into 19 packages. The man said that the drugs were for the Turkish narco-market, noting: "Macedonia was just a transit zone." But the drug movement in this east-west direction was a notable innovation, say Customs officials, because it represents a new path.

Both incidents showed the changing logistical patterns of two negative forces which are often controlled by the same people: the radical jihadist movement and the mafia business in drugs, firearms and human trafficking. The Balkans is becoming a fertile base for both to flourish, and it is clear that radical Islam and Wahhabist movements have been funded by mafia groups, especially the Albanian and Turkish ones.

First, radical Islamists looking to escape from the European Union by hiding in the Balkans are frequently encountered in all the Muslim-inhabited countries of the region. With EU passports, there is no need for them to acquire visas, and the perennially-corrupt and poorly-enforced borders of Balkan countries in any case make it easy for Islamists to take shelter.
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/dfasa071706.htm