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# The Global Intelligence Files

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

## Re: FOR COMMENT - Terrorists, the one thing Mex, the cartels and the US agree on

Released on 2012-08-22 00:00 GMT

Email-ID | 4808824
Date | 2011-10-12 01:20:31
From | brad.foster@stratfor.com
To | analysts@stratfor.com, writers@stratfor.com, multimedia@stratfor.com
List-Name | analysts@stratfor.com

I've been on this.
MM, ill add the quick response from today somewhere in there. otherwise,
let me know asap if there's anything else.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Sean Noonan" <sean.noonan@stratfor.com>
To: "Analyst List" <analysts@stratfor.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 11, 2011 6:00:47 PM
Subject: Re: FOR COMMENT - Terrorists, the one thing Mex, the cartels
and the US agree on
On 10/11/11 5:48 PM, Karen Hooper wrote:
This could use more links that it has -- though I got a bunch in there I
know we have more. If you have some good ones, please throw them in
here.
--------
The alleged terrorist plot to attack a Saudi Ambassador in Washington DC
from Mexico announced Oct. 11
[http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20111011-irans-alleged-plot-against-saudi-ambassador-united-states]
raises a number of very serious questions about Mexico's utility as a
staging point for terrorist operations against the United States. A
perennial concern for U.S. security agencies, the porosity[works for me,
but is this a word?] of the US-Mexico border and the potential for a
serious security threat there is always a high profile ?political? issue
in the United States. Furthermore, reports that accused terrorist and
U.S.-Iranian dual citizen Manssor Arababsiar attempted to hire an
individual who he [Arababsiar] believed had connections to a Mexican
drug cartel ?again? raise concerns that Mexican drug cartels could use
their considerable linkages to the United States to help international
terrorist organizations. Upon careful examination, the threat is much
smaller than it might initially seem -- in part because of close
US-Mexico cooperation and primarily because the threat of US retaliation
on any organization that participates in terrorist activities is
extremely high.
The complaint detailing the charges describes Arababsiar approaching an
individual already on the payroll of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration who claimed to Arababsiar that he had links to what the
complaint describes as a "large, sophisticated, and violent
drug-trafficking cartel." Anonymous sources later told US news agency
ABC that the cartel in question is Los Zetas cartel, which controls
narcotics transfers[this implies 100% control to me] along Mexico's
eastern coast
[http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110808-mexico-security-memo-striking-los-zetas-northeast].
Arababsiar has been accused of [he asked if the CS (confidential source)
had experience with explosives, not for the CS to give the explosives to
him]soliciting C-4 explosives from the informant and asking for a total
of four people to stage an attack on the ambassador. According to the
complaint, Arababsiar[i think this is backwards, wasn't it the CS who
was inititially hesistant?] was initially hesitant to approve an attack
that would cause civilian casualties, but ultimately agreed that they
would be acceptable if necessary as collateral damage. The informant was
offered and accepted $1.5 million as a fee for the assassination. [but
never paid. only about $100k in 2 transfers up to that point]
On Sept. 28, Arababsiar flew to Mexico, was denied entry, and ended up
having to layover in New York City on his way to an unspecified
destination, where he was arrested by US authorities on Sept. 29. In the
Oct. 11 announcement of the arrest, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
said in response to a question that the role Mexico played in
Arababsiar's arrest was significant, but declined to comment further.
The successful interception of the alleged plot, the cooperation with
Mexico and the lack of involvement of any real drug cartels still leaves
open the question: What if the DEA source had been a real cartel member
and the plot had actually gone through? Though there are always reasons
for concern, there are a number of factors that make Mexico a
particularly difficult route of penetration into the US system.
In the first place, the US has extremely active intelligence
capabilities in Mexico. With DEA, DIA, CIA, FBI and other agencies
deeply embedded in Mexico, it is a heavily monitored environment. And
while the US may primarily be focused on the drug cartels and
cooperation with the Mexican government, Iranians raise red flags
everywhere they go. As a general rule, the United States reacts strongly
to Iranian presence in Latin America, and tends to actively engage host
countries to ramp up cooperation and monitoring of Iranian companies and
personnel in the region.
Secondly, as friendly as Mexico is as an intelligence environment for
the United States, it is equally unfriendly to US enemies. The Mexican
government has every reason to be hostile to a foreign entity hoping to
launch an attack on the US from Mexican soil. It is obviously a key
policy need for the United States, but Mexico is also inherently
vulnerable both territorially and economically to any shifts in its
northern neighbor. Should Mexico become a serious transit point for
terrorist operatives seeking to attack the United States, Mexico would
be subject to a rapid US intervention.
This brings us to the potential wild card in the equation -- the
cartels. Widely infamous for being particularly bloody and unscrupulous,
Los Zetas is known to be active throughout the region in violent
activities, human smuggling and drug transport. On its face, it might
seem that the Zetas a** or their competitor cartel, Sinaloa a** could be
a likely suspect[rather than 'likely suspect' i would say 'could have
the capability to'] for cooperating with trans border terrorist
campaigns. If nothing else a** one might imagine a** they could do it
for the money. Looking more closely, however, any such plan would be
exceedingly ill-conceived.
The Zetas and all other cartels in Mexico -- despite a wide array of
activities -- are ultimately business organizations with long-term
strategic goals. These are not organizations that are looking to make a
quick buck or become involved in anyone elsea**s violent political
statements. Mexican drug cartels are struggling with one another and
with the Mexican government for control over transportation routes that
will allow them to transit cocaine from South America to the United
States for as long and stable a period as possible. Any foray into
international terrorism would be very bad for business. The United
States and Mexico both would focus every available asset on dismantling
any organization that engaged in international terrorism. With deep
links into Mexico and physical proximity, the U.S. alone could disrupt a
single network fairly rapidly. With cooperation from the Mexican
government, they could do it even faster.
But the risks do not end there. If an individual or smaller group of
individuals even loosely associated with a cartel attempted to cooperate
with international terrorist groups, they would be risking not only the
wrath of the US and Mexican governments, but also the wrath of the
cartels. Any group of individuals risking the safety of the cartel
transportation networks would quickly be hunted down and turned over to
the authorities by the cartels themselves in order to avoid direct
persecution. This is a consistent pattern with Mexican drug gangs that
perpetrators of high profile, politically costly attacks are rapidly
turned over to Mexican authorities by their own compatriots.
This is not to say that it would be impossible to hire Mexican criminals
to attack US targets. Any plan to use Mexican drug cartels as a
political tool against the United States would threaten the very
existence of the cartel. And with the United States, Mexico and the
cartels all united against the possibility, any attempt to do so would
be extremely unlikely to succeed.
Related links:
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20111005-mexico-security-memo-defining-cross-border-violence
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110614-new-mexican-president-same-cartel-war
http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical_diary/20110706-103028
EXTERNAL LINK:
http://jnslp.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/amended-complaint.pdf
--
Sean Noonan
Tactical Analyst
Office: +1 512-279-9479
Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
www.stratfor.com