Pakistani Taliban Are Said to Expand Alliances

The Pakistani Taliban, which American investigators suspect were behind the attempt to bomb Times Square, have in recent years combined forces with Al Qaeda and other groups, threatening to extend their reach and ambitions, Western diplomats, intelligence officials and experts say. A man linked to the Times Square bombing suspect was arrested at the Bat'ha Mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, known for its ties to the group Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Since the group’s formation in 2007, the main mission of the Pakistani Taliban has been to maintain their hold on territory in Pakistan’s tribal areas to train fighters for jihad against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan and, increasingly, to strike at the Pakistani state as the military pushes into these havens. Pakistan’s military offensives and intensifying American drone strikes have degraded their capabilities. But the Pakistani Taliban have sustained themselves through alliances with any number of other militant groups, splinter cells, foot soldiers and guns-for-hire in the areas under their control.

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Latin American drug cartels find home in West Africa

Colombian and Mexican drug cartels have jumped the Atlantic Ocean and expanded into West Africa, working closely with local criminal gangs to carve out a staging area for an assault on the lucrative European market.

The situation has gotten so out of hand that tiny Guinea-Bissau, the fifth-poorest nation in the world, is being called Africa's first narco-state. Others talk about how Africa's Gold Coast has become the Coke Coast. In all, officials say, at least nine top-tier Latin American drug cartels have established bases in 11 West African nations.

"The same organizations that we investigate in Central and South America that are involved in drug activity toward the United States are engaged in this trafficking in Western Africa," said Russell Benson, the Drug Enforcement Agency regional director for Europe and Africa. "There's not one country that hasn't been touched to some extent."

The calculus is simple: bigger profits in Europe than in the United States, less law enforcement in West Africa than in Europe. The driving force is the booming European market for cocaine.

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