Southcom Commander: Illicit Networks Are Region’s Greatest Security Challenge

Cheryl Pellerin at the DoD News offers the below piece:

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2016 — In Latin America and the Caribbean the biggest security challenge confronting the United States comes from illicit networks used by criminals and terrorists, U.S. Southern Command commander Navy Adm. Kurt W. Tidd said yesterday during a media roundtable at the Pentagon.

Southcom is responsible for Defense Department security cooperation in the 45 nations and territories of Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea, an area of 16 million square miles. During any given week there are up to 7,000 service members in the region, Tidd said.

The admiral called it a region where the United States has significant opportunities, friends and longstanding relationships with countries that see the United States as the security partner of choice.

Opportunities and Challenges

The Southcom area of responsibility has been characterized by the absence of ongoing armed conflict between nations for some time,” he noted, “but it's not a region that is without challenges ... [and] the biggest security challenge when you look at Latin America and the Caribbean … is the illicit networks.”

Sometimes the networks are used by criminals, and sometimes by terrorists, but more often the lines blur between them, Tidd said.

To go after the networks, he added, the U.S. military plays a useful role by working with all its partners -- partner nations, U.S. interagency partners, and those in the diplomatic, intelligence and law enforcement communities -- and using experience developed over the past 15 years to detect, illuminate and disrupt the networks.

“The disruption piece is almost always going to be by partner-nation law enforcement organizations, or by partner-nation military organizations, so that drives a lot of our activities where we work closely to build their capacity to deal with these networks,” Tidd said.

“The last disruption piece is our own U.S. federal law enforcement agencies that are active down in the region working on our country teams,” he added, noting that “pretty much everything that we do, we do in support of our country teams, of our ambassadors.”

The State Department is probably Southcom’s closest partner, Tidd said, and one of his two deputy commanders is a senior State Department official.

Illuminating Networks

Law enforcement and intelligence communities have determined that most of the terrorist networks engage in some kind of criminal activity to raise money, the admiral (seen in the above photo) said.

As one example, there is longstanding concern in the region about organizations like Hezbollah -- a Shiite Islamist militant group based in Lebanon -- “raising money in one region and funneling it to nefarious activities in other regions, and that certainly continues,” Tidd said.

The networks support illicit activities that include smuggling drugs, wildlife, bulk cash, weapons and people, along with illegal logging and mining.

“Our friends in Colombia have said more money is raised in illegal gold mining than is raised in illegal drug smuggling out of Colombia,” Tidd said, “ ... the way they do this leads to enormous ecological damage, where they destroy river systems and leave them a ruin.”

First Steps with Cuba

After the United States and Cuba reestablished diplomatic relations and reopened embassies last July, Tidd said several activities -- the first one a medical interaction -- were identified as useful first steps for Southcom.

A Cuban military medical unit was in Haiti when the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort made a port visit in September 2015, and ship personnel brought the Cuban medical team aboard for a tour and for discussions about humanitarian assistance activities, the admiral said.

Then, in January, Southcom and Jamaica co-hosted the 14th Caribbean Nations Security Conference, where delegations from 18 nations, including the United States -- and for the first time Cuba -- met in Kingston, Jamaica, Jan. 26-29, for talks on security cooperation and capacity building in the Caribbean.

“It was the first time we were at one of these security conferences together,” the admiral said.
Some initial warming up was required, he added, while the Cuban delegation members were getting used to the idea of listening to broad discussions about security concerns.

“The island of Cuba sits directly astride principal north-south trading routes. Those trading routes also happen to be smuggling routes and Cuba has concerns about illicit trafficking,” Tidd said.
Calling it a first step, the admiral said the timeline will be driven largely by the Cuban government, “because they're not prepared for that degree of openness, frankly, and I think it will take [time] to get to that point.”

Southcom, Zika

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Zika virus outbreaks occurred in areas of Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands before 2015. In May 2015, the Pan American Health Organization issued an alert regarding the first confirmed Zika virus infections in Brazil. Outbreaks now are occurring in many countries and territories.

On Feb. 1, CDC says, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern because of clusters of microcephaly and other neurological disorders in some areas affected by Zika, for which CDC travel warnings include many countries in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Tidd says Southcom supports U.S. national and multinational efforts in two areas -- understanding the transmission vectors -- primarily mosquitoes -- and helping with their eradication, and contributing to the international medical research effort to develop a Zika virus vaccine.

The mosquito-borne vector is well understood in this part of the world, he added, going all the way back to U.S involvement in digging the Panama Canal and dealing with the mosquito-borne viruses responsible for yellow fever and malaria.

“More recently [mosquito-borne diseases] dengue and chikungunya … have a much more immediate deadly impact that we've been paying attention to for some time down there,” the admiral added, “and the protective measures that we take for Zika are the same measures we take for dengue fever and chikungunya.”

Zika Eradication, Research

Partner nations in the region know what’s required for mosquito eradication, which Tidd called a labor-intensive challenge, particularly in an urban setting.

For the vaccine effort, the Defense Department funds Naval Medical Research Unit No. 6 in Lima, Peru, co-hosted with the Peruvian Navy, he said, noting that the unit is working closely with CDC and other international partners and themselves doing cutting edge work on world class virology and bacteriology studies.

Fewer than five service members are confirmed to have the Zika virus, Tidd said.

One female service member so far has taken advantage of the military policy in place to allow service women or spouses of service members who are living in country to request a transfer, the admiral said.

“We continue to watch it very closely,” he added, “and along with everyone else we're providing pretty vocal guidance about self-protection measures.”

Note: The top photo show U.S. Army Sgt. King David, a CH-47 Chinook crew chief with the 1st Battalion, 228th Aviation Regiment, observing the San Cristobal volcano, one of at least six active volcanoes in Nicaragua, while transporting the Joint Task Force-Bravo U.S. Southern Command Situational Assessment Team on May 19, 2016. The U.S. Air Force photo was taken by Captain David Liapis.

Admiral Tidd: Global Terrorist, Criminal Networks Southcom’s Biggest Threat

Cheryl Pellerin at the DoD News offers the below report:

WASHINGTON March 11, 2016 — Global terrorist and criminal networks are U.S. Southern Command’s biggest threat, corrosively affecting the stability and security of the United States and every country they infect, Navy Adm. Kurt W. Tidd told a Senate panel yesterday.

The Southcom commander, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee for the first time since taking command in January, also discussed how the fiscal year 2017 DoD budget request affects Southcom.

“No two networks are alike,” Tidd said. Some are international criminal enterprises focused on transporting any illicit cargo for the right price, he said, while others are small operations that smuggle desperate migrants.

Other networks support terrorist organizations through financing and the spread of violent extremist ideology, he told the panel.

Global competitors also threaten the region, the admiral said.

Global Challenges

“They operate deliberately in the Western Hemisphere as part of their broader global strategies. The most concerning of them is Russia, which portrays the United States in our theater as unreliable and as withdrawing from this pivotal region,” Tidd said.

Security in the Western Hemisphere connects directly to other parts of the world, the admiral said.
“Smuggling networks run through South America directly into our homeland [and] foreign terrorist fighters flow from the Caribbean to Syria and to Iraq,” Tidd added.

As part of its global strategy, he said, Russia tries to discredit U.S. reliability as a trustworthy partner in the United States’ own region.

“These issues transcend artificial boundaries and demand a transregional, united response,” the admiral said.

Colombia and FARC

Also in Southcom’s area of responsibility is Colombia, Tidd said, a country where the United States has worked for decades to help countering narcotrafficking and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, called the FARC.

Yet, hard work remains to done in Colombia, the admiral said, including extending government influence into dangerous criminal-controlled territory, confronting the persistent threat of cocaine production and trafficking, and securing peace after more than 50 years of conflict.

“With the blood and treasure that they have already sacrificed,” Tidd said, “with all that they continue to do to export security across the region, the Colombian people have more than earned our sustained support.”

Central America

Regarding Central America, the admiral said Southcom recognized during the 2014 migrant crisis -- when nearly 500,000 Central American and Mexican migrants were apprehended on the U.S. border -- that what happens on the streets of San Salvador and Tegucigalpa has a direct impact on the streets of Tucson and Providence.

“Our Central American partners are doing all they can to win their countries back from vicious gangs and narco traffickers, but they cannot do it alone. And because we remain the No. 1 world's consumer of illicit drugs, we owe it to them to do our part,” Tidd said.

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also in Southcom’s area of responsibility, the admiral said, “is where we conduct the most principled, humane detention operations anywhere in the world, and we will continue to do so until the very last detainee steps on an airplane and departs the island.”

Limited Resources

In response to a question about whether the fiscal year 2017 DoD budget request has adequate resources for Southcom, Tidd said it does not.

“I do not have the ships, I do not have the aircraft to be able to execute the detection-monitoring mission to the level that has been established for us to achieve,” he said.

Southcom’s U.S. partners in the region, including the Navy in the Caribbean and the Pacific, who coordinate with the law enforcement arm of the Coast Guard, need resources too, Tidd said.

“It is very much a team sport. The activities orchestrated by our Joint Interagency Task Force South in Key West, Florida, involve the efforts of all of the federal law enforcement agencies, [and] the Coast Guard, plays a very significant role,” the admiral said.

In the Southcom region, he added, the adversary is flexible and agile.

“It's like squeezing a balloon,” Tidd said. “When we squeeze in one place if we are not able to apply pressure across the entire breadth of the network they will adapt and move to the area that they think they can get into.”

Zika Outbreak

On the regional outbreak of Zika virus that began in Brazil, Tidd described Southcom’s role in such epidemics.

In May, the Pan American Health Organization issued an alert about the first confirmed Zika virus infection in Brazil. That outbreak, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, led to reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome and women giving birth to babies with microcephaly and other birth defects and having “poor pregnancy outcomes.”

During the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak, Tidd said that a large interagency network was formed and Southcom was a key participant, and the group was re-energized with the Zika outbreak.

“We remain postured to respond to requests for assistance from our partner nations in Southcom. We have put out specific guidance to the men and women who are part of our command operating in that region,” the admiral told the panel.

Zika and Service Members

Protective measures that impact service members, he added, are the same measures that have been in place to protect them from exposure to dengue fever, chikungunya and other mosquito-borne illnesses.

To date, the only two male service members who have been diagnosed with Zika have recovered and returned to duty,” Tidd said.

One military family member, a pregnant female, has taken advantage of a policy that allows a return to the United States, Tidd said. The family already had been scheduled to return to the United States, so hers was a slightly accelerated return, he added.

“We're working with the countries, primarily on training in the mosquito eradication programs,” he said. “Their militaries are very heavily engaged in those activities, so that's where we stand, right now.”


The admiral said that the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 6 in Peru, part of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch, has been doing work in the development of experimental vaccines and disease-detection methods related to mosquito-borne diseases like Zika.