US military eyes ‘extremist Islamic movement’ in Latin America
TheHill: The top U.S. military commander in Latin America said he and his regional counterparts are growing more concerned about radical Islamic extremists using the region as a pathway into the U.S.
“Radicalization is occurring,” said Adm. Kurt Tidd, commander of U.S. Southern Command, at a roundtable with reporters on Wednesday.
“We just have to recognize that this theater is a very attractive target and is an attractive pathway that we have to pay attention to,” he said.
Tidd, who became Southcom commander in January, said the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has attracted between 100 and 150 recruits from Latin America, and a “small number” have attempted to return to the region.
“Or — and the one that I find much more worrisome — if they can’t get there, they’ve been told to engage in lone-wolf attacks where they’re located,” he said. “Those are the ones that have most of our regional security partners concerned because they’re so difficult to detect.
“It’s the extremist Islamist movement, and that very corrosive engagement that you’re seeing on the internet that they’ve demonstrated an effectiveness in,” he added.
He also said there is some movement of migrants from the Middle East to Latin America.
“I think we are beginning to see people coming into this hemisphere who have very, very questionable backgrounds, and our law enforcement agencies are paying close attention to that,” he added.
Tidd said leaders acknowledged at a regional security conference in January that Islamic radicalization is a problem.
“All of the countries recognize that this is something that — in the past they would say, ‘This is not a problem in my country,’ ” he said.
He said terrorists are attracted to illicit smuggling networks in Latin America.
But, he said, the U.S. and its partners should focus on the networks rather than exactly what they are smuggling, such as animals, drugs, weapons and people.
“It’s the ability that these networks have to pretty much be able to move anything that I think should give us all concern,” he said.
“If we focus on the networks we may have a better chance of catching things moving through,” he said.
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Radical Islam in Latin America and the Caribbean: Implications for U.S. National Security
by: Dr. R. Evan Ellis, PhD1
An estimated 1.5 million Muslims live among Latin America and the Caribbean’s approximately 600 million inhabitants, with approximately 2/3 of them concentrated in Argentina and Brazil.16 Although sometimes mistakenly called “turcos” (turks) the region’s Muslims are a diverse subset of persons who immigrated from Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern countries from the beginning of the 20th Century and before.
This ethnic group, both muslim and non-muslim, is well-established, including some of the most politically and economically successful persons in the region. Indeed eight Latin American and Caribbean heads of state have been of Arabic origin: Antonio Saca (President of El Salvador from 2004 to 2009), Jamil Mahuad (President of Ecuador from August 1998 to January 2000), Carlos Flores (President of Honduras from 1998 to 2002), Carlos Menem (President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999), Abdalá Bucaram (President of Ecuador from August 1996 to February 1997), Jacobo Majluta (President of the Dominican Republic from July to August 1982), Julio Turbay (President of Colombia 1978 to 1982), and Julio Salem (leader of Ecuador May 1944).17
Other prominent citizens of Middle Eastern ancestry in the region include Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the actress Salma Hayek, and the pop music star Shakira.
To date, Iran has been the principal, but not the only Middle Eastern state pursuing interests in the region. Other state actors from the region have also played a modest role in the region in the past; Libya, prior to the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, was a significant partner for Bolivia.18 There is no reason why other Middle Eastern states could not also expand their profile in the region, including Syria, whose current regime has a long working relationship with Hezbollah, 19 currently the most powerful Islamic radical group in Latin America.
Iran’s agenda in the region in recent years has generally focused on using sympathetic regimes such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Suriname to escape international isolation and circumvent international sanctions, develop missiles and perhaps weapons of mass destruction, and to gain influence within Muslim groups and communities so as to potentially use them for actions against the United States, Jewish, or other Western interests if Iran’s regime perceives itself as gravely threatened in the future.20
While Iran seeks to mobilize and influence non-state Islamic actors in the region such as Hezbollah for its own purposes, the interests of such groups and the potential challenges they pose to hemispheric security are not limited solely to Iran’s agenda.
The combined challenges of both state and other radical Islamic actors in Latin America and the Caribbean may be grouped into three categories:
• Generation of resources for islamic radicals fighting in other parts of the world;
• Formation of logistics networks for and launching attacks on targets in the Western Hemisphere;
and
• Collaboration between radical Islamic actors and Latin American allies in evading international controls and developing weapons. The full report here.
