WASHINGTON: Islamist radicals from Iraq and Afghanistan, aided by Mexican drug cartels were planning a terrorist attack on United States' largest intelligence training centre, forcing the authorities to tighten security measures at the key army base, a daily reported here on Monday.
Security measures were changed at Fort Huachuca, north of the US-Mexican border, in May after being warned that Islamist terrorists, with the aid of Mexican drug cartels, were planning an attack on the facility.
Possibly 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were to be smuggled into the US through underground tunnels with high-powered weapons to attack the Arizona Army base, 'The Washington Times' reported on Monday.
"A portion of the operatives were in the United States, with the remainder not yet in the country," said an FBI advisory obtained by the paper and which was distributed to the Defence Intelligence Agency, the CIA, Customs and Border Protection and the Justice Department.
"The Afghanis and Iraqis shaved their beards so as not to appear to be Middle Easterners," it said.
According to the advisory, each Middle Easterner paid Mexican drug lords $20,000 "or the equivalent in weapons" for the cartel's assistance in smuggling them and their weapons through tunnels along the Mexican border into the US.
A number of such radicals are already in a safe house in Texas, it added.
Fort Huachuca which lies about 20 miles from the Mexican border have members of all four service branches training in intelligence and secret operations. About 12,000 persons work at the fort and many have their families on base.
"We are always taking precautions to ensure that soldiers, family members and civilians that work and live on Fort Huachuca are safe," Lt Col Matthew Garner, spokesman for Fort Huachuca, said.
"With this specific threat, we did change some aspects of our security that we did have in place."
The FBI report is based on Drug Enforcement Administration sources, including Mexican nationals with access to "sub-sources" in the drug cartels.
