AMERICA's WAR ON TERROR - PART II
These developments do not mean that Chinese-American or Chinese-Russian military clashes are about to erupt, but the rifts are discernible and may widen in the long term.
Part II: The Military Campaign Fails to Grip
DEBKAfile’s military analysts define the first round of theUS assault in Afghanistan as uncertain and operationally unimaginative.
In fact, it may be said that the US is reliving the 1998 Kosovo War, when it tried to break Slobodan Milosovic’s rule by blasting Belgrade from the air. That tactic left the Yugoslav army more or less intact and Milosovic unscathed - until he was removed by force of political and economic maneuvering.
A week of aerial bombardment over Afghanistan was proof enough that, barring follow-up ground action, this was not the way to oust the Taliban or to capture the super terrorist Osama Bin Laden. The week therefore ended in a draw – a signal achievement for both of America’s enemies. Taliban capabilities may have been impaired but, according to reports on the ground, the main body of its force defending Kabul remains intact.
According to our analysts, as October advances, the chances of a significant American ground action in Afghanistan diminishes.
October 14 and October 15 are more or less the last nights of low lunar illumination. However DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that President Bush has not yet given the go-ahead for more than a token operation on the ground, aimed mostly at demonstrating to the American people that the war is going forward.
The US defense secretary and senior command have no intention of dropping US troops in Afghanistan between November 2001 and April 2002, when the harsh winters of the Afghan mountains prevail. The weather forecasters we consulted predict a heavier snowfall and more acute cold conditions this coming winter than usual.
On the other hand, an announcement from Washington that America is taking a winter break from its war on terror is unthinkable. The alternative course would be to activate the rebel Northern Alliance as the US proxy ground force against the Taliban, while theUS concentrates its military efforts on other terrorist concentrations, hosts and sponsors, such as Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon and Syria.
Therefore the opening of a second front in America’s war on terror may happen much sooner than many expect.
The trouble with this scenario is that it leaves Osama Bin Laden, America’s primary foe, holding the element of military surprise. While the US army’s hands are tied by weather conditions, Bin Laden remains at large and free to strike.
The Northern Alliance presents no real impediment to the ex-Saudi terrorist. Its leaders are reluctant to move into Kabul before the Americans have cleared the way and established a post-Taliban regime. Although most of their tanks are crewed by Russians, the rebels have little confidence in their ability to vanquish the Taliban without a bloodbath.
Part III: Bin Laden May Have Small Nuclear Bombs
US Vice President Dick Cheney told the American people that Al Qaida has been training terrorists to use chemical and biological weapons. He said this after the FBI denied finding links between the anthrax cases in the United States and terror.
Whatever they are told, most Americans now believe their country is in the grip of a bio-terror attack, perpetrated by the same groups that struck the WorldTradeCenter and the Pentagon on September 11.
Cheney referred to the manuals found for training people in the deployment of deadly substances. On October 6, DEBKAfile reported: “Any bioterrorists would have received their training in the dissemination of dangerous materials directly from Iraqi military intelligence experts. Iraq is the only country known to be actively developing such substances of mass murder.”
America’s news media believe they are being singled out of for targeting, since the three Florida victims worked for the same supermarket tabloid, the infected envelope reaching New York was addressed to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw and a third suspect envelope was sent to a Microsoft office in Reno, Nevada.
This is very possible, for Bin Laden and his fundamentalists regard the US media as the foremost propagators of the American way of life and a pillar of democratic US government. While possessing the computer technology for disrupting publication and broadcasts, Al Qaeda evidently rates biological warfare far more effective as a weapon of fear against American society.
Al Qaeda may also have crude chemical weapons, according to a senior US defense official, but it lacks the hi-tech means to deliver them. The substances he named are chlorine and phosgene poison gases, both World War I weapons, but he did not believe they had any more complex chemical weapons, such as sarin nerve gas. He also asserted that they would have to use primitive but “innovative” methods to attack people with them, such as crop dusters and hand sprayers.
The question of whether Bin Laden has a nuclear capability still remains to be officially addressed. According to the information disclosed in the latest DEBKA-Net-Weekly, it is very possible that he has.
In a special investigation,DEBKA-Net-Weekly learned from well-placed intelligence sources that the millionaire terror master did procure a supply of uranium-235 six months before his Al Qaeda suicides carried out their September 11 strikes in America. The uranium was delivered following an extraordinary deal between the most wanted terrorist in the world and one of the world’s most dangerous mobsters, a shadowy Ukrainian-born Jew called Semion Mogilevich, who rules over an arms-trafficking, money-laundering, drug-running, prostitution and graft empire.
Sources who spoke to DEBKA-Net-Weekly on condition of anonymity report that for a princely sum estimated at US$40 - 75 million, Bin Laden bought between 12 and 15 kilos of uranium-235, all of which came from Russia or some Central Asian Muslim republic.
If this is true, the master terrorist has enough fissionable material to build between 3 and 5 nuclear devices.
A detailed account of how the nuclear material was sold, smuggled and delivered to Bin Laden is carried in the latest issue of DEBKA-Net-Weekly, the exclusive electronic newsletter put out for subscribers by DEBKAfile.
To subscribe, click HERE.
Bush and Putin in Nuclear Tit-for-Tat Accord
October 5, 2001
Perhaps the most earthshaking outcome of the epic 70-minute conversation between Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin last week was the nuclear understanding they reached in a flash, as part of a new US-Russian political and military pact to fight international terrorism together.
Their conversation also covered a possibly over-optimistic shared vision of a post-war Afghanistan and a post-Saddam Iraq. Afghanistan under a restored monarchy was assigned a special geopolitical role in the regions of Southwest and Central Asia.
Russian and American officials have made no disclosures on the nuclear accord, but
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources report that Putin gave the nod to Bush to arm the US forces now arriving in Central Asia with tactical nuclear weapons, such as small neutron bombs, which emit strong radiation, nuclear mines, shells, and other nuclear ammunition suited to commando warfare in mountainous terrain.
Moscow’s consent to the deployment of US nuclear weapons in Central Asia, once a Soviet fiefdom where the Russian army is parked even today, constitutes an upheaval in the global balance of strength.
Sources tell DEBKA-Net-Weekly that China’s reaction was instantaneous. Tactical nuclear missiles and aircraft capable of bearing nuclear bombs were transferred to bases in the Xinjiang region (formerly Chinese Turkestan) of northwest China bordering on the Central Asian states and Afghanistan. Long Chinese military convoys were seen thundering west along the Krakoram Road, the main Chinese route to the Chinese-Afghan-Pakistani border. Some of the trucks, according to Russian and US surveillance, carried equipment for detecting and de-contaminating areas close to places coming under nuclear, chemical and biological attack.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources place the US nuclear weapons in four former Soviet Central Asian bases: the military air facility at Tuzel, 15 km (10 miles) northwest of the Uzbek capital of Tashkent; at Kagady in the Termez region; in Khandabad, near the city of Karshi; and at the military air base in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
But integral to the Bush-Putin nuclear deal was a tit for tat: Hours after speaking with Bush, Putin issued a 72-hour ultimatum to the Chechen rebels to lay down their arms. It expired on September 26 without the rebels’ surrender. Putin accordingly deployed Russian tactical nuclear weapons units around Chechnya. He also moved Russian bombers carrying small neutron bombs to Russian military air bases around the border of the breakaway province, in Stavropol northwest of Chechnya, the Godowta base in Georgia to the south, and Mozdok in northern Osetia, northwest of Chechnya.
Russian and U.S. military sources refuse to take questions on these startling events, but it was clear to military observers in Central Asia that Russia did not move its nuclear hardware in a vacuum. This step, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources, was part of an agreed package under which America moved nuclear arms into its anti-terror playing field. As Putin and Red Army chiefs saw it, a free hand for the US to employ tactical nuclear weapons in Afghanistan was countered with reciprocal permission for Moscow to wield tactical nuclear weapons against Muslim rebels in Chechnya, some of whom are backed by bin Laden.
The US is far from eager to actively inject a nuclear element into the war against terrorism and will not be the first to do so. According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources, the US will hold those tactical nuclear weapons in reserve, unleashing them in the campaign against bin Laden only in the following circumstances:
- If Bin Laden’s men first bring out nuclear, chemical or biological weapons to fight US forces inside Afghanistan’s Little Pamir and Hindu Kush regions.
- If Taliban fighters strike Pakistan with chemical or biological weapons in retaliation for the US assault.
- If forces under the umbrella of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network – either in Central Asia or the Balkans – bring these weapons of mass destruction into play in order to strike at US military targets or US nuclear arms.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources see a fourth scenario:
– If the US pursuit forces discover the terror chief’s hideout and conclude that the action to lay hands on him would exact an intolerable toll in American casualties.
Moreover, the nuclear option will loom too if the US campaign against bin Laden runs into unforeseen difficulties.
The reciprocal deployment of tactical nuclear weaponry was only one facet of the secret accord reached by the US and Russian presidents in their historic telephone conversation.
They also covered important strategic ground on key issues relating to Central Asian oil, Iraq and post-war Afghanistan, based on the assumption that the Taliban regime would be driven out in the coming US-led campaign.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly, who spoke with US and Russian sources conversant with the content of the Bush-Putin conversation, revealed that the two leaders agreed to assign Moscow a position of influence in Kabul after the 86-year old King Zahir Shah was crowned ruler.
The Russians would be provided with a valuable vehicle. The construction of the world’s longest oil and gas pipeline was planned by the two leaders for moving oil from the Central Asian and Russian fields to India and Pakistan via Afghanistan. America would invest in the ambitious 3-4 year project, and extend substantial financing to Moscow to cover its share. After it is operational, building will be scheduled to start on an underwater extension of the pipeline to Japan.
The two presidents’ agreement on Iraq was similarly far-reaching.
Putin promised his government would drop its objections to a major US offensive against America’s long-time nemesis, Saddam Hussein – and even make available Russian intelligence on Iraqi targets, including weapons of mass destruction storage and manufacturing locations, as well as command centers and camps used by terror organizations. But again, in return, Putin demanded that Moscow’s position of influence be preserved in post-Saddam Baghdad. This Bush pledged, together with an offer to join Moscow in rebuilding Iraq’s oil industry.
All this geographical carving up may be premature. There are still hard battles to be won. But the two presidents are in a hurry to win their global power spurs – this time as partners.
Dual US Objective: Finding Bin Laden and Restraining the Russians
9 October, 2001
If, as US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers claim, most of the objectives of the three-day US air raids over Afghanistan have been accomplished, then why must the strikes go on “more or less around the clock”? as the secretary put it.
The question exercising most military experts consulted by DEBKAfile is: Why do US generals believe it necessary at this point to carry out a level of ”carpet” bombing never directed against Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad or Milosovic’s Belgrade? After all, how many strategic targets does Afghanistan have?
The answer has little to do with military tactics.
According to DEBKAfile ’s military and intelligence sources, at the moment of writing, the Americans have no idea where Osama Bin Laden, the terrorist they are after, is hiding.
On Sunday, October 7, exactly 1 hour and 50 minutes before the first US air bombardment, two light planes took off from Kahandar airport, without lights. They appeared on the radar screens of US attacking bombers for five minutes before vanishing, never to be traced until now.
According to the intelligence coming in from Kandahar to US intelligence, those small, shadowy aircraft carried Bin Laden, the Taliban leader Mullah Mustafa Omar and their top lieutenants to a secret destination. The ease of their escape bears testimony, according to military observers, to the long-term planning capabilities of Bin Laden’s military advisers. On the assumption that the US bombardment would be executed primarily by heavy B-52 bombers and a small number of B-1 craft, they waited for the first sortie to pass and the sky left clear, before taking off into the dark yonder.
DEBKAfile’s military experts presume that the two fugitive craft headed north to a secret landing strip as yet undiscovered by US satellites in the Hindu Kush mountains. For the time being, therefore, the Americans have run out of strategic targets in Afghanistan, except at the cost of heavy civilian casualties. Their plan therefore is to keep the aircraft up over the mountains around the clock in the hope of spotting “emerging targets”.
But the Americans have a second reason for maintaining a round-the-clock air presence: the secret Russian plan they have got wind of. Our military sources and informants in Moscow reveal that the tanks, the APCs and the self-propelled artillery Moscow gave the forces of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance are in fact manned by Russian troops. Altogether three armored brigades of the 201rd Russian Motorized Rifle Division are now poised on the outskirts of Kabul, planning to enter the Afghan capital ahead of US forces.
This exercise would repeat the gambit the Russians pulled in the 1999 Kosovo War, when they beat NATO to the draw by taking over Kosovo’s main airport before the alliance had a chance to effect a troop landing there.
By their round-the-clock bombing threat, the Americans hope this time to deter the Russians from jumping in first again.
But who knows? Bin Laden might find himself fighting the Russians again – this time against the Americans to boot. In Afghanistan anything can happen.
Tactical Nuclear Weapons Deployed
6 October, 2001
DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, in a single 70-minuted conversation o September 23, eleven days after the terrorist assaults in New York and Washington, agreed on the deployment of tactical weapons. This is an epic shift in the global balance of strength.
Putin gave the nod for US forces poised in Central Asia to jump into Afghanistan to be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, such as small neutron bombs, which emit strong radiation, nuclear mines, shells, and other nuclear ammunition suited to commando warfare in mountainous terrain.
In return, Bush assented to Russia deploying tactical nuclear weapons units around Chechnya after Moscow’s ultimatum to the rebels, some of whom are backed by Osama Bin Laden, to surrender, went by without response. DEBKAfile’s military sources place the US nuclear weapons in four former Soviet Central Asian bases: the military air facility at Tuzel, 15 km (10 miles) northwest of the Uzbek capital of Tashkent; at Kagady in the Termez region; in Khandabad, near the city of Karshi; and at the military air base in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
In addition to the nuclear weapons units, Russian bombers carrying small neutron bombs were moved to Russian military air bases around the border of the breakaway province, in Stavropol northwest of Chechnya, the Godowta base in Georgia to the south, and Mozdok in northern Osetia, northwest of Chechnya.
Russian and U.S. military sources refuse to take questions on these startling events.
The US is far from eager to actively inject a nuclear element into the war against terrorism and will not be the first to do so. According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the US plans to hold those tactical nuclear weapons in reserve, unleashing them in the campaign against bin Laden only in certain extreme circumstances:
1. To counter a move by Bin Laden’s men first bring out nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against theUS force fighting inside Afghanistan.
2. If a chemical or biological assault by the Taliban against Pakistan.
3. Should groups of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network – either in Central Asia or the Balkans – wield these weapons of mass destruction against US military targets or US nuclear arms in other parts of the world.
4. If using them is the only way to save heavy American combat casualties.
Full accounts of impending war preparations appear in the latest issue of DEBKA-Net-Weekly, the exclusive electronic intelligence letter put out for subscribers by DEBKAfile.
To subscribe, click HERE.
As US-Russian Force Prepares to Go into Afghanistan Mid East is Temporarily Sidelined
2 October, 2001
The most significant feature of the imminent US assault against Afghanistan is the major role to be played by Russian military might, following the new and far-reaching understanding reached between President George W. Bush and President Vladimir Putin.
DEBKAfile’s military sources reveal that the Tadjikistan based Russian 201st Motorized Rifle Division was beefed up Tuesday with staff commando units, Pashtun speakers and interpreters. Its members also received American-made anti-terrorist equipment and weapons flown in especially.
DEBKAfile adds: The anti-terror alliance has split its task into two parts. The Americans and Russians will go for Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda force in the PamirMountains, while the UK and Western allies will take on the Taliban in south Afghanistan.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is taking a back seat to events about to explode in Afghanistan. But Israel could find itself in the diplomatic hot seat again once the smoke clears from the initial stages of the U.S. military campaign against terrorism.
A hint of what could be in store appeared on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post on Tuesday. The newspapers reported, in very careful language, that several days before the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell planned to announce in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly the Bush administration’s support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The speech, which was never delivered in the aftermath of the suicide hijack-bombings that led to the cancellation of much of the General Assembly session, was to have paved the way for a meeting in New York between President George W. Bush and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Now, the reports said, State Department officials are again trying to find the right time to revive the new U.S. peace initiative.
The officials argue that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hampering U.S. efforts to unite Arab states behind Washington’s global coalition against terror.
The Israeli media rushed to report – ad nauseum -- this new U.S. peace initiative, even as several hundred U.S. and British bombers prepare to blast Afghanistan.
However, as both U.S. newspapers noted, U.S. policy is set in the White House, not in the State Department.
The real decisions in Washington are made by five people: Bush, vice president Dick Cheney, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- whose position has grown stronger since the attacks in New York in Washington -- deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The group of five, which is spearheading the U.S. war effort, has given Powell and senior State Department officials a free hand in forging a global anti-terror alliance. The coalition’s sole importance, the decision-makers believe, is to serve as a screen or window dressing for military action in the war.
So for now, at least, the sound of the explosions will drown out talk of the U.S. diplomatic move on the Israeli-Palestinian front, but they will not be able to silence completely the murmurs of peace.
DEBKAfile’s American and Palestinian experts say the real test for Israel will come after the first stages of the war in Afghanistan.
It is possible, our experts say, that State Department officials will eventually try to turn the spotlight back on what they see as the strategic importance of the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
The first stage of this State Department campaign to portray Israel as the sole obstacle to a world anti-terror coalition failed, primarily because of a dramatic change in the global strategic picture.
The change was rooted in a new U.S. awareness of who its real friends are. |
