Al Qaeda and the gang(s)

Not my favorite news source, but it's worth mentioning that the Washington Times has a story today about Al Qaeda making contact with Central American gangs, specifically the Mara Salvatrucha. The idea here is that Al Qaeda might use the sophisticated (?) human smuggling operations of Central American gangs to get people into the U.S.

This single Washington Times author demonstrated access to a remarkable amount of detail from official sources. A couple of weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times had five reporters do a similar yet longer story, but failed to even mention the gang angle, focusing more on the porousness of Mexican borders. The LA Times also gave less credence to information about a suspected Al Qaeda operative sited in Honduras in July, the same guy who was portrayed today as a "key al Qaeda cell leader for whom the U.S. government has offered a $5 million reward."