Al Qaeda, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) Linked

Interpol: Terrorist group Al-Qaeda could have links with the Central American gangsBy m3report

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La Hora (Guatemala City, Guatemala) 4/8/09

“Risk of links between gangs and Al-Qaeda is confirmed” -full translation-
Ronald Noble, Interpol Secretary General, said that the terrorist group Al-Qaeda could have links with the Central American gangs, also known as “maras”.

The official supported his hypothesis after analyzing a data base with names and data belonging to the international security organization.

Noble confirmed the risk of the relation between the two groups during the recent Interpol Americas’ International Conference which took place in the city of Vina del Mar, on Chile’s central coast.

According to the official, the information – not yet confirmed – reveals that there is contact between the terrorist activists and the gangsters who dedicate themselves to the traffic of drugs and people in the region.

Al-Qaeda has defined itself as an Islamic resistance group presumably led by the fundamentalist Osama bin Laden, to whom is attributed the intellectual authorship of the terrorist attack to the World Trade Center in 2001, among others of great magnitude.

(Guatemala’s) Secretary of Government, Salvador Gandara, indicated he is unaware of the information reported by Interpol, nevertheless he acknowledges the way in which the maras operate on Guatemala’s border in conjunction with the “narco-terrorist” groups.

The official pointed out that the gangs were initially formed by Central American immigrants residing in the United States, where they would defend the barrios where they belonged. Gandara maintains “Mara 18 was born in the jails and its name came from 18th Street in Los Angeles, it’s a most troubled barrio.”

Then came the mass deportations of Central Americans from the United States, and this way also the criminal groups entered the region. “They have also deported criminality”, he maintains.

The Secretary of the Interior did not confirm that there may exist links between the maras and the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, but that they do have them with the drug traffickers “who generate terror wherever they go.”

The official confirms that the maras are an executing arm which generates chaos and instability to facilitate drug and other illicit traffic in Central America.

Contrary to what Interpol has revealed, security analyst Sandino Asturias, believes that there is no relationship between the maras which operate in Central America and Al-Qaeda’s terrorists structures from the Middle East.

He asserts “Those statements lead to an over-evaluation of the organization and the reach which the maras have” He adds, “This aims to introduce a security agenda to the liking of the United States”. According to Asturias, “Al Qaeda does not represent a potential threat for Central America and Latin America, given that their objectives are different from those it has found in the world powers”

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