Triple Border Region May Be Ideal Hide-Out for Terrorists

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay —  To their defenders, the communities at the junction of the Parana and Iguacu rivers are little more than freewheeling border towns where you can see spectacular waterfalls and shop for cheap goods.

In the much grimmer vision of international police and U.S. diplomats, the communities on the triple border of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina are hide-outs for terrorists who are poised to wreak havoc on South America and the rest of the world.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, these two visions of the triple border region and its large Arab and Muslim communities have shaped a conflict that is being played out on the streets here and in two nearby towns: Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, and Puerto Iguazu, Argentina.

Anti-terrorist police have raided shops and neighborhoods, with masked agents hauling off about a score of Arab men for questioning. Leaders of the Muslim community and others responded Nov. 11 with a march of more than 30,000 people, charging that outsiders had slandered their community.

“There is no history of terrorism or racial discrimination in this region,” said Faisel Saleh, one of the event’s organizers.

That claim is disputed by U.S. officials and others, who say that the region’s permeable borders and vibrant smuggling trade have made it an ideal haven for Islamic militant groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

In a report issued in April, the department called the region a “focal point” for such militants in Latin America.

“We do have indications and have had indications of individuals and groups [in the region] with links to Islamic extremists in the Middle East,” said Mark Davidson, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Asuncion, Paraguay.

Last month, Paraguayan prosecutors ordered the detention of Assad Ahmad Barakat, whose electronics store was the target of an October police raid in which officials found documents, videotapes and other materials said to promote Hezbollah.

Paraguayan authorities say Barakat is hiding in Brazil. But Brazilian officials, who are skeptical that the region is linked to terrorism, say there are no formal charges against him in their country.

Among those who have downplayed the terrorist threat is Joaquin Mesquita, Brazil’s federal police chief in Foz do Iguacu. Mesquita also heads a commission created by the three nations to share intelligence.

“Representatives of the three nations . . . concluded there are no terrorists in the region because they lack proof to the contrary,” Mesquita said.

During a U.S. visit last month, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso said the streets of the triple border area were “safer than London.”

Still, in recent years there have been a series of cases that establish links, though often tenuous, between the region and acts of terrorism on three continents.

Argentine authorities, for example, have long suspected that attacks in the 1990s against the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires were organized here. Corrupt police officers who allegedly helped carry out the attacks frequented this area, although it remains unclear what aspect of the crime--if any--was planned here.

In 1996, a tip from Argentine officials led to the arrest of a Lebanese national who was allegedly planning to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Asuncion.

Mohammed Mokles, an Egyptian charged in two attacks on tourists in Egypt that left a total of 76 people dead in 1996 and 1997, later surfaced in Foz do Iguacu, where he lived with his family. Mokles, who is alleged to have trained in a camp run by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, recently was arrested in Uruguay after crossing from Brazil.

But local officials in this region have established no direct link between the Muslim community and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Within a few weeks of the attacks, Paraguayan agents, many wearing hoods to conceal their identities, fanned out across the narrow streets of Ciudad del Este and other border communities. They detained at least 17 men. All but two have been released.

Officials suspect that, at the very least, the region’s highly successful Arab entrepreneurs are providing financial backing for Muslim radicals.

“Surely there are supporters in this area,” said Augusto Lima, a spokesman for the Paraguayan national police, referring to backers of Hezbollah and another Arab militant group, Hamas. “But it is very difficult to follow the money trail. We have no evidence of a financial support network.”

Some leaders of the Arab community have been known to publicly back organizations such as Hezbollah, which are seen by many in the Muslim world as akin to the French Resistance of World War II.

But since Sept. 11, Muslim leaders have been at pains to distance themselves and their community from the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“We do not support any kind of terrorism,” said Sheik Taleb Johmha, a leader in the Muslim community of Foz do Iguacu. “We do not have any person of this society who is guilty of this. If you have any evidence, please let us know.”

Taleb spoke near a mosque where the daily calls to prayer echo through a courtyard on Palestine Street.

The large Muslim community in Latin America dates to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. Arab traders began migrating to the remote jungle communities here after Paraguay established Ciudad del Este in the 1950s as its window to the much larger and more affluent Brazilian and Argentine economies.

There are 15,000 to 25,000 people of Arab descent in the triple border region. Residents and tourists in Ciudad del Este can cross between Paraguay and Brazil on foot, often without documents.

The lack of border controls and a tolerance of smuggling have helped create the image of the triple border as a lawless Wild West. A variety of organized crime groups from Asia and elsewhere are said to be active here.

Add the rumors of terrorist cells, and you have a disaster for the region’s tourism industry, which is more developed on the Brazilian side of the border.

Neuso Rafagnin, the top Brazilian tourism official in the region, said “all of these unfounded reports on terrorism” have reduced the number of people traveling to the triple border. Hotel bookings are down as much as 50% compared with last year.

Among those rushing to the defense of the area was Brazil’s outgoing justice minister, Jose Gregori, who said he would investigate complaints of a “witch hunt” in Foz do Iguacu’s Muslim community.

“An entire city is being made the victim of a discriminatory campaign,” the minister said.

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Times staff writer Tobar reported from Buenos Aires and special correspondent Gobbi from Ciudad del Este.