It seems to me that the Cuidad del Este is far more geographically inaccessible and much harder to monitor than the Free Trade Zone in Colon. Wouldn't that be a key factor in the establishment of, for example, an AQ training base?

Thank you,

Solid

Could be. But if you were an unsavory type making buckets of cash, would you want to attract the authorities by shooting a lot of guns in the jungle?

Personally, based on my time there, Ciudad del Este is one of the major smuggling cities in South America.

Combined with the near total corruption of the many officials there, it is an ideal place to conduct any sort of illicit activity.

TR

That's true. It would be good to have some proximity to arms flows and money flows, though (IMO). I can't find any information on where the training camps in Afghanistan or Somalia were, which makes it hard to estimate whether a base in or near Cuidad del Este would be of use. I need to develop far better resources.

Solid

There were also traning camps in Sudan. Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan were failed states (2 still are).

In comparison to, say, the Astan Pakistan border area, how hard would the TBA be to militarily interdict in your opinions?

Thank you,

Solid

My earlier point was that while the TBA is the kind of place conducive for a range of illicit activities, it is not the kind of environment where AQ or other Arab Muslim terrorists would be able to set up shop. In Syria, Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia, you had or have sympathetic persons with political power (Islamist regimes and/or local tribal leaders) to provide a level of protection. In Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen (as well as the aforementioned Syria and the Bekaa Valley), you have ethnic ties (including in many cases your own families and tribes) and Arabs do not stand out as much. The Muslim Arab population of the TBA is relatively small and local government leaders may be corrupt, but they are not supportive of the terrorists' ideology as the Taliban and Sudan's Islamists were.

Notwithstanding that, assuming such a thing did happen, and an Afghanistan-like series of camps were set up, you have several consideratrions. First, as noted, you can't count on a great deal of support from corrupt local officials. Second, you need the cooperation of three countries. As we see in Afghanistan, and as fits the classic guerrilla model, having the ability to move across borders and find sanctuary is important. Argentina may be the strongest link here - Muslims and Arabs already say they do not feel comfortable on the Argentinian side of the border due to surveillance by Argentinian law enforcement and intelligence. Paraguay is weak because it is a weak state, but Brazil may be the biggest problem. While Lula is not sympathetic to Islamism, he is certainly sympathetic to anti-Americanism. He wouldn't provide the kind of sanctuary that Mullah Omar would, but I would not count on his government going out of its way to help the US.

I don't think there are camps, I don't think they are living in the jungle. I think the presence is commercial: drugs for gold for arms for drugs for gold. There have been reports of Iraqi money paper showing up in the AO and being used to counterfiet dollars. Maybe places to hide out in the open for the most wanted, that kind of thing.

Albeit a socialist/communist by ideology, Lula is not an idiot or fool; therefore I don't see any complicity on his part in regards to either active or passive support for Islamic radicals. In fact, he has been rather pragmatic in his policies thus, I suspect he would be more concerned about it then we would.

My point is that his cooperation would be limited. For instance, while Brazilian police and military forces might be deployed to secure the region, there seems no likelihood that US forces would be permitted to operate on the Brazilian side of the border. Of course, Argentina doesn't have the most pro-US government these days either.

Also, although this may be a gross over-generalization, one thing I have noticed working with troops from Arab countries is that they don't like jungles. I would expect any AQ or Hizbullah types hanging out in the region to try to merge into the local Arab urban populations. And, as noted, since the most hospitable parts of the population are rather small, the number of terrorists able to hide there is correspondingly small.

Essentially, I see the environment there as closer to a lawless Dearborn, Michigan, Hamburg, Germany or the banlieus of Paris - a place where smaller terrorist cells might be able to set up safe houses, raise money, buy weapons or make smuggling contacts to move elsewhere in the region - rather than like Afghanistan's White Mountains - a place to set up training camps and a larger infrastructure. That affects in part the tactical approach, and makes the likelier scenarios more of a law enforcement and intelligence operation than a military operation.

The Brazilian government is not in control of large portions of Brazil.

Yea like good portions of Rio:rolleyes: