911 - A Russian/Israeli/French joint masterstroke....
Russia's sponsorship of the Taliban and al-Qaida
Post-Soviet Russia faked friendship with the legal Afghan government of Burhanuddin Rabbani (1992-2001), while its "former" communist generals (seven out of eleven) served Hekmatyar, with the main exception of Dostum. According to Peshawar University professor Azmat Hayat Khan, the communist army was divided with the explicit intention of continuing destabilization, and retaining their party affiliations and structures for future use. ("Central Asia" 31/1992, p. 62) The Taliban was, however, sometimes suspicious about its former communists, many of whom may have been purged in September 1998, when three generals, twenty-two officers, and thirty other people were arrested for involvement in a communist conspiracy. (Radio Russia 27.9.1998)
When Rabbani's defense minister Massoud, the arch-enemy of the KGB, was about to restore peace in Afghanistan by 1995, against all odds, Russia promoted a new rebel movement, the Taliban. Money, arms and technological know-how was channeled not only through the above-mentioned agents, but also directly by flights from Russia, and probably overland through Turkmenistan. This started before bin Laden's arrival, and bin Laden - through his Egyptian connections, close to Hekmatyar - remained servile to Russian interests.
First of all, Russia was worried about the future of ex-Soviet Tajikistan, which enjoyed a short period of democracy at the very same time when Rabbani and Massoud, both ethnic Tajiks, were restoring order in Kabul. The Russian army restored old communists to power in Tajikistan, fought a bloody civil war, and put pressure on the Afghan government not to tolerate Tajik guerrillas on its soil.
Secondly, Saparmurat Niyazov, the communist leader of Turkmenistan, initiated, in November 1994, a project to build oil and gas pipelines through Afghanistan to Pakistan. (Guardian 3.10.1995) This was further promoted by the mighty Gazprom company, whose former manager Viktor Chernomyrdin is, as its shareholder, one of world's richest men, and happened to be Russian prime minister from 1993 to 1998. This end of the pipeline project has received little attention from western media, while the other end has produced speculations ever since Californian-based UNOCAL and Saudi Arabian Delta Oil companies were attracted to the project by October 1995. Originally, Argentinean oil company Bridas was involved, but because it would have preferred a routing through Iran, it was dropped out of the project. (Der Spiegel 1/2002)
Gazprom succeeded in having UNOCAL to sign a deal on August 13th, 1996. This became a political nuisance to the USA, and finally, UNOCAL cancelled it. However, neither the government of Turkmenistan, nor the Russian gas giant Gazprom, suffered from bad publicity. They met no political objections to continue negotiations with the Taliban. (International Press Service 30.4.1999; AsiaPulse via COMTEX 31.10.2000) Niyazov personally put on hold the promising alternative, American-sponsored Trans-Caspian Pipeline Project for the export of Turkmen gas to Turkey. (The Monitor 4.1.2001)
While Niyazov and Chernomyrdin had personal financial interests to support the Taliban, US Vice President Al Gore signed the infamous 1995 US-Russian weapons agreement, which exempted Russia from sanctions, although Russia would sell arms to Iran. This secret agreement violated the rules of 1992, by the US Congress. Gore's excuse was, that Russia agreed upon not selling nuclear technology, and to stop all arms exports to Iran by the end of 1999. This, of course, never happened, and when the failed agreement was leaked to The New York Times in October 2000, Russia declared its intention not to keep it anyway. (Reuters 31.10. and 22.11.2000) The case illustrates, how deeply Chernomyrdin was involved in businesses with Islamic extremists, and how Russia succeeded in having Bill Clinton's administration participate in shady deals against American public interests. There were also rumours of promised concessions in the pipeline projects, or in financial support to Gore's presidential campaign. Gore's loss at the November 2000 elections was a devastating surprise for Russian political establishment.
Thirdly, a KGB officer, Victor Bout (Viktor But), flew arms to the Taliban until 2001. The beginning of this business enterprise would have remained unknown, if a Russian airplane would not have been spotted at Kandahar airport. According to Bout's explanations, the arms shipment, originally intended to the government in Kabul, was forced to land at Kandahar by a MiG 21, on August 6th, 1995. This happened exactly at a time when the Taliban was about to be routed. Instead of a rapid disaster at this critical point, the reinforced Taliban turned to attack, and took over the town of Herat by September 5th. The Russian pilots were kept as hostages in Kandahar until next August 16th, when they miraculously escaped and were decorated by the Russian president. Soon after, in September 1996, a well-armed Taliban advanced all the way to Kabul.
Victor Bout was born in 1967, probably in Smolensk. He has used also the names Viktor Bulakin and Vadim Aminov. He carries five passports: two Russians, one Ukrainian, and probably one Tajik and one Uzbek. (Guardian 23.12.00) He served as navigator in the Soviet air force, and graduated from the Military Institute for Foreign Languages in Moscow. By 1991, Bout had a career in the KGB, assisted by his father-in-law, who was no lesser a character than the Brezhnev family member Tsvigun. (Guardian 23.12.00)
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Bout served in UN peace troops in Angola. (Sunday Telegraph 22.7.01) He still has a house in Johannesburg, now used as a brothel. In 1995, Bout appeared in Belgium as the owner of a cargo flight company. He flew arms to Afghanistan, since 1997 to East Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda, and since 1998 to Liberia and Sierra Leone. Destinations may have included also Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Eritrea or Georgia (the end users are often unknown), Peru, and Sri Lanka (Tamil Tigers). (Jane's Intelligence Review, February 2002; The Washington Monthly 1/2002)
Bout's partners were Soviet-trained air force generals of the Taliban. To be closer to Afghanistan, he moved in 1997 to the United Arab Emirates. When UN sanctions forced the UAE to check the cargo going to Afghanistan, in January 2001, Bill Clinton's administration did its last favour to friendly Russia by allowing an exception for carriers registered in Russia. (Los Angeles Times 20.1.02) For Clinton's Russia expert Strobe Talbott, Russians were always above any suspicions as sponsors of Islamic terrorism. Once again, the British MI6 was needed to turn CIA's attention to the right direction. (Sunday Times 17.2.02)
Russian disinformation labeled the Taliban a client of Pakistan, although some observers had noticed already by 1997, that the ISI had surprisingly little leverage on the Taliban. Even if the Taliban were a creation by Benazir Bhutto's (1993-1996) interior minister, Nasrullah Babar, they had soon freed themselves from any gratitude and dependence. In June 2001, a fax message from Peshawar, revealed by Pakistani intelligence, described Bout?s role as Taliban's life-line. Arms listed as "fish from Tanzania" should be routed either overland via Turkmenistan, or by air to Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan - the airplanes, flown by reliable Armenian pilots, would then fake emergency landings in Afghanistan. (The Washington Times 11.11.2001)
Bout has 250-300 employees, probably mostly Russians, Ukrainians, and Armenians. According to a Russian newspaper, the Komsomolskaya Pravda, Bout's main source of arms is Transdnestria, the Moldovan slice of land occupied by Russian army and administered by Soviet-nostalgic communists. (BBC 27.2.2002) This is also where terrorists of the Turkish PKK have found refugee. According to Jane's Intelligence Review, February 2002, "Pakistani smugglers with ties to Ukraine" escorted possibly up to 200 al-Qaida militants to Ukraine. The "Pakistani smuggler" was, however, Bout's associate, and the destination probably Transdnestria.
Bout himself owns a five-storey house in Moscow, where he appeared in a radio studio to declare his innocence. Shortly before, the Russian Interpol officer had claimed, that they had searched for Bout for years, and could guarantee, that he was not in Russia! (The Los Angeles Times 26.2.02) Bout's brother had a house in Islamabad. (The Washington Post 26.2.02)
On 28th February, 2002, the head of the Russian Interpol office proudly declared, that after four years of investigations, Russian law-enforcement agencies could assure, that Bout was nowhere in Russia. At the same time, Bout appeared in the Ekho Moskvy radio programme, saying that he had lived all the time in Moscow. He evaded questions by claiming, that he was a businessman, envied and therefore persecuted by Americans, that he had no ties to Russian intelligence, that he was involved only in air transportation since 1992, and that he never went "into the arms trade as such" - after all, "What does 'arms trade' mean?" Bout asked. He repeated the common claim, that "Americans helped in cultivating the Taliban and controlled it through Pakistan." (The New York Times 1.3.2002)
The same night, a Russian Interior Ministry spokesman explained that police were not seeking to arrest Bout, because they had no evidence of any wrongdoing. (The Los Angeles Times 1.3.2002)
Some years ago, Talbott had entertained great expectations because the FBI was allowed to train Russian colleagues to fight terrorism in Moscow. Not only have they failed to investigate the September 1999 bombings, which were pinned collectively on Chechens, but were actually committed by the FSB, as has become evident since then, but both the FBI and their Russian colleagues appear to be unable to apprehend even well-known Russian "merchants of death" in Moscow, despite of international warrants for arrest.
There might indeed be a Chechen connection, but hardly the like Interpol would be looking: the former communist boss of Soviet Chechnya, and Russia's puppet president (1995-1996) Doku Zavgayev, was appointed as Russia's ambassador to Tanzania shortly before bin Laden's associates blew up buildings there. Also, the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan's decision to fly to East Africa, in February 1999, may be added to a list of curious coincidences.
We should also remember the career of Yevgeny Primakov, KGB operative in Egypt in the 1960s, chief of the reorganized foreign intelligence service SVR from 1991 to 1996, foreign minister from 1996 to 1998, and prime minister from 1998 to 1999. [Note by the Editor: In 2001, Primakov was appointed the Russian ambassador in Ukraine, and he serves as the actual supervisor of Transdnestria. Transdnestria was also one of Öcalan's hides before he was arrested in Kenya.]
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