Catching drug traffickers a new priority

Stars and Stripes (European edition)
Wednesday, August 10, 2005

By Russ Rizzo

A year ago, Tom Lohman was part of a two-man team in Stuttgart tasked
with fighting drug-related terrorism throughout Europe.

Now, he is one of a dozen members of U.S. European Command’s
counternarco-terrorism office that has found itself much busier this year.

As the Department of Defense takes a larger interest in drug trafficking
around the world because of links between the illegal drug market and
terrorism, people such as Lohman are finding more work, funding and
areas of control at their fingertips.

Lohman, manager of EUCOM’s counternarco-terrorism program since 1997,
said he recently has been freed to help investigate drug activity in
areas around Europe.

A change in policy after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks freed
Department of Defense money for operations to crack down on drug
networks around the world, even if the drugs were not coming into the
United States, Lohman said. The reasoning was simple: terrorists were
using money from drug trafficking to fund operations, and they were
using traditional drug smuggling routes to transport weapons.

Lohman’s office is paying to send EUCOM Special Forces and contract
workers to Azerbaijan to train the Azeri Navy in maritime security for
the Caspian Guard Initiative, a new program aimed to increasing security
in the Caspian Sea and countries that border it, he said.

In the process, Lohman said, U.S. officials are gaining a foothold into
a drug route that has been the target of much speculation by U.S.
officials but not much investigation.

`There is very little actual intelligence information that can be
sighted as far as drugs transiting either in the sea or in the area near
the sea,’ Lohman said. `The more we look, the more we think we’ll find.’

Money devoted to countering narco-terrorism could eventually pay for new
boats and surveillance gear the Azeri government would use to stop drug
smugglers, Lohman said.

Lohman said his office will participate in a similar way with the
Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative, which aims to train soldiers
in northern Africa.

He said he was also working with countries along the Adriatic Sea and
Balkan states, although he declined to give specifics.

`We’re really trying to link terrorism with the drug threat,’ Lohman
said `Sometimes it’s very obvious, sometimes it’s subtle, and sometimes
it’s not there.’