headland

A Russian parliamentary commission claimed this week that a foreign special service was involved in the Beslan hostage-taking (Interfax) The Russians did not identify the country, but Iran is an obvious suspect. (Hat tip to Headland reader No Dhimmi.) Evidence of indirect Iranian assistance to the terrorists in Beslan can be found in the article by Yossef Bodansky, discussed in part on Headland in Monday's post ("Russia's Chechnya Terrorism Highlights Broader Links and Objectives, Linking to anti-US and Palestinian Terrorism," Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, November 29, 2004). Bodansky maintains that the Beslan hostage-taking was not about promoting Chechen independence, but an act of escalation in the global Islamist jihad against the West. Bodansky further argues that the strikes against Russia were planned by the al-Qaeda high command, with key support from Iran, after a decision in the summer of 2003 to broaden the anti-western jihad, beyond the anti-U.S. resistance in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, to include terrorist strikes against Russia.

All sides agree that the hostage-takers were a multinational team. Russian intelligence claimed, soon after the attack, that the strike force was composed of 35 terrorists, including "Chechens, Insushes, Kazakhs, [ten] Arabs, Uzbeks and Slavs." Arab Islamist sources tend to agree with this original Russian claim of the large number of Arabs among the hostage-takers.

According to Bodansky, in mid-August 2003, Zawahiri and his aides were in Tehran to coordinate anti-American resistance in Iraq. "Then, on August 17 or 18, 2003, the eve of the first spectacular strikes in Baghdad, Ali Younessi, the chief of Iranian intelligence, personally instructed a special team of Iranian senior intelligence operatives to organize Zawahiri's clandestine trip back to Pakistan." The mullahs allegedly wanted Zawahiri to leave Iran because they did not want to be directly associated with a marked escalation in Islamist terrorism. Iranian intelligence gave Zawahiri the disguise and documents that helped him travel across the Turkish border, to stay in a safe house in eastern Turkey. Using a route upon which Islamists volunteers may travel to Chechnya, with the tacit approval of Ankara and Baku, Iranian intelligence escorted Zawahiri to al-Qaida's bases in the Pankisi Gorge in northern Georgia on the border of Russia. Zawahiri is then said to have traveled to the Fergana Valley, through northern Afghanistan, to Pakistan.

On the way to Pakistan, Zawahiri inspected command cells of jihadists that were under a command center of senior al-Qaida commanders in Tehran. Bodansky identifies the key members of this command group as: Saad bin Osama bin Laden (son of Osama bin Laden), Seif-al-Adl, Muhammad Shawqi al-Islambuli (a.k.a. Abu-Khalid) and the Mauritanian Mahfuz Ould Waleed (a.k.a. Abu-Hafts).

On the eve of his departure from Tehran, Zawahiri organized a new command cell for the Caucasus. Among the commanders of this cell were the Saudi, Muhammad Abu-Omar al-Seif, nominated by Zawahiri as "al-Qaida's emissary" in Chechnya and the northern Caucasus. Though he was deployed in summer 2003, he assumed the formal title "Commander of the Eastern Province and the Mujahedin and Al-Ansar in Chechnya" in September 2004. Bodansky mentions, but has no information about, another key commander in Chechnya, the Saudi Abu Hajr.

The first claim of responsibility for the strikes against Russia was issued via authoritative Islamist-jihadist channels that are associated with bin Laden's elite command. The claims were written in Arabic and explained that the anti-Russia jihad was an integral part of the global anti-Western jihad. The first such communique was issued from "Kataeb al-Islambuli" [The al-Islambuli Brigades] and claimed responsibility for the downing of the two aircraft. The Al-Islambuli Brigades are associated with the Iran-based Muhammad Shawqi al-Islambuli.

Next came a claim of responsibility for the Beslan massacre from "Ansar al-Zawahiri" [The Supporters/Devotees of al-Zawahiri] on September 5, 2004. The al-Zawahiri group tried to link their grievances against Russia with those they hold against all whom they regard as enemies of Islam.

The last communique in Arabic regarding the anti-Russian jihad and its connection to the global jihad was issued by "The Chechnya al-Khattab Group" on September 18, 2004. It declared:

"In consideration of the Russian and US parties exceeding the limits of their aggression against the honor and dignity of Islam and Muslims in Chechnya, Palestine, Iraq, Indonesia, Afghanistan, and other Muslim countries, within sight of the international community and without awakening the conscience of any Arab leader ... the commanders of the Chechen mujahedin and al-Ansar in Chechnya declare the beginning of simultaneous attacks against Russian and US interests."

Bodansky sardonically notes that the goal of an independent or Islamic Chechnya was not even mentioned in these statements. He also notes that the Chechen leader Shamil Basayev did not acknowledge responsibility for the strikes until after the Islamist-jihadist leadership had already done so. Basayev's first message was posted on September 19, 2004, though it was dated September 17. In an interview published on November 1, 2004, and prepared by the Kavkaz-Tsentr, Basayev acknowledge he had only "a degree of responsibility for the strikes" and did not think he was "guilty of that outcome." Yet his threats of future escalation became more bold, and he even gave a veiled warning of the use of weapons of mass destruction: "I would like to note," he said, "that the Russians had many times used chemical and bacteriological weapons against us as well as various poisons, and we feel free to retaliate."

Bodansky does not doubt any of these claims of responsibility. He sees a tight integration of the al-Qaeda high command with the Chechen resistance, not only operationally but ideologically. He cites the mentor of Basayev, Magomed [Muhammad] Tagayev, as calling for an anti-Russian jihad not in the context of an independent or even an Islamist Chechnya. According to Tagayev, "[The] Chechen state is ... the forward springboard for the liberation of the entire Caucasus."

Thus, the strikes against Russia in Autumn 2004 reveal how the international Islamist-jihad cause is closely integrated with the regional Islamist jihad in Chechnya.

Labels: Abu-Hafts, al Qaeda, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, Beslan, Chechnya, Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Shamil Basayev, Yossef Bodansky

Careful inspection of the wave of terrorism that hit Russia in August 2004 reveals how closely the network of Islamist-jihadists has integrated the objectives and resources of the international jihadist movement with local Islamist causes and assets. That is the lesson of a lengthy special report in today's Defense & Foreign Affairs by Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor of Global Information System ("Russia's Chechnya Terrorism Highlights Broader Links and Objectives, Linking to anti-US and Palestinian Terrorism," Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, November 29, 2004 -- no link can be provided, since the article is not publicly available on the web).

The spectacular assaults on Russia in August 2004 displayed a "mix and match" of local and imported contributions. The two Chechen women who served as martyr-bombers were identified as members of the "regional Shakhid unit of Moscow of the battalion of Shakhid, Riyad us-Salihin" by Shamil Basayev, the Chechen rebel leader (whose top aide, Akhmed "White Arab" Sambiyev was just killed late Thursday by Russian security forces). Forensic evidence reveals that the bombs used on the two Russian planes were similar to the bomb that was seized from the shoes of Richard Reid, after he attempted to bomb an American Airlines flight on December 22, 2001.

Remarkably, Bodansky also claims that the bombs used on the Russian planes were also similar to the "bomb used by Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, who, on November 12, 2001, brought down an American Airlines aircraft soon after taking off from JFK to the Dominican Republic." The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has maintained that the crash of AA 587 was accidental, and argues that the detachment of the vertical fin could not been the result of an event within the cabin. Suspicion that the crash was the result of sabotage has persisted, however, and just last August, Daniel Pipes reported in FrontPage Magazine the information (which Pipes called "not exactly rock-hard") that AA 587 was the result of an Al-Qaida operation with "Farouk the Tunisian" as the bomber.

Bodansky also reveals the source of Richard Reid's shoe bomb. The details illustrate the close cooperation between Iranian and Palestinian jihadist forces and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network.

Reid's shoe bombs were based on Iranian-origin technology and were made of new type of high-explosives. Reid -- then an acknowledged bin Laden operative -- received his shoe-bombs in the Palestinian Jebalya camp in the Gaz Strip. At the time, he was a trainee-guest of Nabil Aqal, a senior commander of the Hamas' Izz al-Deen al-Qassim Brigades and a protege of Hamas leader Sheikh Yassin. The key components of the bombs had been smuggled to Gaza from Lebanon via Egypt by then-Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasir Arafat's ally and confidante, Jamal Sema Dana. The Hamas support for Reid a major deviation from Yassin's long-standing insistence that the Hamas cadres limit their operations to the Palestinian theater in order to contribute to international operations under the banner of a global jihadist entity. However, by the late 1990s, the Hamas needed foreign support from the global Islamist-jihadist movement and Yassin was willing to "pay" by increasing its direct involvement in the international jihad.

Some of this foreign support Hamas received from international Islamist-jihadists was from Chechnya. Just after the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000, Shamil Basayev and Hattab, the "Black Arab" (who was later poisoned by the Russian secret service in 2002), sent 150 Chechen and Arab-Chechen "expert bomb-makers, snipers and fortification-builders" to Gaza and the West Bank. The extremely powerful bombs that Palestinians used to destroy several Israeli tanks were provided by the Chechens. Muhammad Dahlan, now head of Palestinian security services in Gaza, ran a program of smuggling into the Gaza Strip al-Qaida fighters and Chechens from Afghanistan-Pakistan. Each of the al-Qaida transplants received a $5,000 cash bonus, contributed from Saudi Arabia. A few of the Arab-Chechens had even been members of the Hamas Iss al-Din al-Qassim Brigades before they left Gaza and Nablus for advanced training in Afghanistan/Pakistan.

The ideological solidarity between the Palestinians and the Islamists in Chechnya became more public in 2004 when Hamas recruitment posters and videos featured portraits of bin Laden, Yassin and Hattab as the key leaders of the Islamist movement. The Hamas video also contained a fatwa by the Chechen Mufti Muhammad Abdullah Al-Seif sanctioning martyrdom-terrorism and even authorizing the recruitment of female martyr-bombers.

Labels: al Qaeda, Al-Qa'idah, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Chechnya, Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily, Gaza, Hamas, Osama bin Laden, Richard Reid, Russia, Shamil Basayev, Yassir Arafat, Yossef Bodansky

Russia is joining the war in Iraq -- sort of. Russia's Defense and Security reports on Friday that Russia is ready to resume deliveries of arms and military equipment supplies to Iraq ("Shock, Awe and Russian Weapons," Vladimir Ivanov, Andrei Terekhov).

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Thursday: "If the corresponding request is received, Moscow will resume deliveries of Russian-made, rather than Soviet-made armaments on [a] gratuitous basis." According to Ivanov, Russia will train Iraqi servicemen to drive the Russian-made military vehicles.

According to Colonel General Yuri Baluyevsky, chief of the Russian General Staff, who met with General James Jones, Commander Allied NATO Forces Europe, the new Iraqi authorities asked the Americans on November 6 to supply two armored divisions with hardware. Since the Pentagon did not want to supply its up-to-date military equipment, the order was shifted to the Russian army.

Alexander Shavarin of the Center of Strategic Studies expects armored military hardware, infantry fighting vehicles and personnel carrier vehicles, and heavy armored vehicles to be supplied to Iraq, along with small arms, mortars, ordinance, and ammunition of various calibers. In Shavarin's view, the familiarity of the Iraqis with Soviet weapons is one reason why Moscow has been given this assignment.

According to Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, former chief of the department for delivery of arms and military specialists abroad, about 200 advisers could be sent to Iraq in the first phase, on a similar basis to the manner in which weapons have been supplied by Russia to Syria and Egypt.

Labels: Iraq, Russia

New information on how Saddam Hussein manipulated the oil-for-food program appears in today's Associated Press from Desmond Butler. Earlier this month the report of U.S. arms inspector Charles Duelfer revealed that various foreign companies and individuals from various countries, but predominantly from Russia, France and China, had received oil contracts from the former Iraqi government under the U.N. program.

Today's report is based on information from interviews with dozens of former and current iraqi officials by congressional investigators at the House International Relations Committee chaired by Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Illinois. The Iraqi officials were flown outside of Iraq for the interviews.

The need for protection of these witnesses became evident in late June, when an Iraqi official, Ehsan Karim, head of the Iraqi Finance Ministry's audit Board, was killed in a car bombing after having been interviewed in Amman, Jordan, on May 21.

The Iraqi officials provided lists of foreign companies favored by Saddam for import contracts under the oil-for-food program. They also revealed a parallel blacklist of companies disqualified from getting deals. Iraqi front companies that operated abroad to solicit and process bribes from foreign companies were identified.

The list of favored companies include some who appeared on Duelfer's report as getting oil vouchers, including Gazprom, Lukoil and Tatneft. There were also some obscure Western companies from Germany, Belgium, Cyprus, Italy and Switzerland appearing on the list. Various companies on the blacklist are censured for having done business with Israel.

Labels: China, Ehsan Karim, France, Iraq, Russia, Saddam Hussein, United Nations

Several news sites (e.g., BBC, International Herald Tribune, Canberra Times) report a quantity of 125-136 kg (275-300 lb) of weapons-grade plutonium, reportedly enough for 40 nuclear bombs, is to arrive late Monday night in the French port of Cherbourg. The shipment has been carried across the Atlantic by two ships, the Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail, owned by a company whose largest shareholder is British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.

Wisely, BNFL will not disclose security arrangements, but the ships are believed to be armed only with a 30mm machine-gun and guarded by 13 special atomic energy policemen. Before leaving U.S. waters, however, the ships were escorted by "a combination of Coast Guard cutters, boats, aircraft and other local law enforcement and naval assets" (Canberra Times).

After landing in Cherbourg, the plutonium will be taken 965 km (600 miles) by trucks to Cadarache in the Provence-Alpes-Côted'Azur region of France, where it will be made into mixed-oxide (MOX) plutonium-uranium rods to become fuel for U.S. nuclear reactors.

Early next year, the rods will be transported back across the Atlantic to Charlotte, South Carolina. U.S. officials claim that the present trans-Atlantic trip of weapons-grade plutonium is a "one-off," because plans call for future batches of fuel to be made in a new plant in the U.S. to be built by the French group AREVA, the same company that is processing this shipment in Cherbourg.

The transformation of weapons-grade plutonium into nuclear fuel is the result of an agreement between the United States and Russia in September, 2000. The two nations each agreed to eliminate 34 tonnes (37.5 U.S. tons) of weapons-grade plutonium in this way. Each year, at least two tonnes will be taken from stockpiles, transformed into fuel, and transported again to storage.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups are making a good bit of noise over this, in France and internationally. This is a rare occasion in which I agree with them. In a time when there is a heightened risk of terrorism, the transporting of plutonium, under limited security, poses a much greater threat than the status quo situation of the two cold war adversaries keeping close watch on their own fissile materials. Admittedly, an agreement for transforming swords into plowshares may have looked more promising before 9-11 than it does today. For now, one can only hope that the increased attention to this shipment, occasioned by the protests of environmentalists, will result in additional security and protection of this dangerous cargo against piracy by terrorists.

Labels: Greenpeace, Megatons to Megawatts, plutonium, Russia