There is a terrorist organization in the Middle East that would buy an entire human smuggling network in the Balkans.
The report on the national security implications of illegal migration in the Serbian-Hungarian border area has enriched the already gloomy picture of the southern border with new serious details. According to this, the physical, manpower and legal elements of the Hungarian defense line are exposed to increasing pressure. The report also drew attention to new, previously unknown, gross details.
One of the main identified risks is the increasing competition between people-trafficking groups with an Afghan background in Serbia.
According to the report, this phenomenon can clearly be seen in a growing tendency to violence. The background of human traffickers in Afghanistan now also means a kind of control.
The document prepared for the National Security Committee reveals that the leaders and members of the gangs now include those who
they are related to the leaders of the Taliban government and the influential Haqqani group, registered as a terrorist organization.
The report states that the increasing violence of human traffickers is largely driven by business interests. Human trafficking as a business is becoming more and more profitable, so more and more people would participate in it, while rival gangs are trying not only to preserve, but also to increase their market share.
According to the report, "in this situation, the appearance of a group whose members openly admit violence and lack of inhibitions, the behavior brought from "home" according to which attacking and defeating the "enemy soldier" is a glory, represents a major risk factor".
And this is also reflected in the fact that one of the Afghan criminal gangs active on the other side of our southern border is no longer promoting their smuggling activities on the social media called TikTok, but rather their militancy and violence.
The videos published by the gang called 40-059 bear an eerie resemblance to previous recordings by ISIS and al-Qaeda.
According to the report's authors, it can also be identified that this group codenamed 40-059 and another gang named 313 are behind practically all armed conflicts between human traffickers in the southern region.
As the Hungarian media also reported, the smugglers recently shot at the Serbian police as well.
Moreover, Hungarian border guards have also been targeted from across the border, while they regularly threaten Hungarian border guards verbally and with weapons. Ten minutes before two in the morning on October 20, for example, a series of shots were fired - presumably into the air on purpose - while four border guards on the Hungarian side were arresting nine migrants.
A conflict involving the regular use of weapons has developed between two major Afghan human trafficking groups, but the Taliban are no longer passively watching this either.
According to information from the secret services, a decision was made to close these internal disputes, and control of the sending of financial resources will be taken over entirely.
From now on - if this activity continues to work in the future - human traffickers' income will therefore be partly used to finance terrorism, or even to corrupt local authorities, or to purchase additional weapons.
In addition, perhaps the most serious information revealed so far is that there is a terrorist organization in the Middle East that would buy an entire human smuggling network in the Balkans.
All in all, a number of risks can be identified in connection with both the recent past and the expected events of the near future. Human traffickers are becoming more and more aggressive, presumably more and more of them come from combat zones and have combat experience. Their armed forces are growing, while human trafficking is becoming more and more profitable. Moreover, they are now increasingly organized, not regardless of the fact that the Taliban also see an opportunity in controlling the gates of Europe. Not to mention that, following the events in the Middle East, the domination of human trafficking may also be attractive to terrorist organizations.
Cover image: Serbian police rounded up more than a thousand illegal immigrants
Source: Serbian Ministry of the Interior
