The U.S. is "running out of demons. I'm down toFidel Castro & Kim Il Sung" Colin Powell, former JCoS chair & millennial SecState per Robt. Borosage Inventing the Threat: Clinton defense pgm |
| "the murderers are among us" Bertold Brecht |
Experts are almost unanimous in saying that bin Laden is
a creature of a US foreign policy which recklessly fed & nurtured him & his Islamic
[ Wahhabi ] warriors with million of dollars
worth of money & arms to fight the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. Under a little known document
called the National Security Directive 166 of 1985, Pres. Reagan ordered stepped up U.S. covert aid to militant
groups fighting the Soviets. The order resulted in the CIA providing, lavishly and, as it turned out, recklessly, arms
& training via money funnelled largely through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
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Shortly after the Russians invaded Afghanistan, young & wealthy Saudi Arabian named bin-Laden rushed to
Afghani mountains to fight a Muslim holy war against Godless Communism. Having inherited more than thirty
million dollars from his father's construction business he was in a position to lend immediate help to the struggling
Afghani freedom fighters. He formed quick alliances among the half dozen or so major factions of the Mujahedeen
led by Afghani Sheik Hekmatyar.
In 1979, when Soviet invasion occurred, virtually none of the heroin entering U.S. came from the so-called
Golden Crescent in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. At the time it was coming from Mexico & SE Asia.
By 1982 the region was producing exportable opium base equivalent to 20-30 tons of heroin a year. Of that, at least
4.5 tons reached the U.S. By 1988 those numbers had increased to 70 to 80 tons of heroin of which 15 to 20 tons
reached the U.S. According to Alfred McCoy, in his outstanding book The Politics of Heroin (Lawrence Hill Books,
1972, 1991), Hekmatyar controlled no less than 6 heroin refineries in the Khyber District of Pakistan alone. At his
side was Osama bin-Laden.
Around the time that Osama bin-Laden moved to Afghanistan in 1980 he was also curiously able to found a series
of investment companies under the umbrella SICO which he headquartered in Geneva. Sources formerly in the
intelligence community have confirmed to me that, as bin Laden established branches in the Cayman islands
& the Bahamas, he employed law firms & consultants connected to Langley, VA & the CIA.
Throughout the Afghan war bin-Laden grew in reputation as a fearless leader and devout Muslim. His wealth also
increased rapidly. By the end of the war and the Soviet withdrawal he was known throughout Africa
& the MidEast as a radical fundamentalist leader who had turned his sights against the U.S. But this was not
without creating enemies both in Afghanistan and his home country of Saudi Arabia, which drew ever more
securely into the U.S. sphere, especially during & after the Gulf War.
In the early 1990s bin-Laden took up sanctuary in the Sudan and was afforded a kind of safe haven. He threw
himself into massive construction projects including road building. The Sudanese govt has admitted that it
had an agreement with the U.S. to monitor bin-Laden and to curtail his terrorist activities. In exchange for this
Sudan received unspecified rewards. It is, therefore, mystifying as to why, with bin-Laden under scrutiny in the
reasonably accessible and penetrable Sudan, the U.S. govt forced the Sudanese govt to expel him in 1995. This
drove him back into the arms of the increasingly hostile Taliban militia in Afghanistan. There, he re-established
relations with Afghani drug lords in the towns of Jhost and Jalalabad.
What really got my attention was the fact that French Internet publication Indigo reported bin Laden was London
guest of British Intelligence as recently as 1996 and his treasurer last year defected to the Saudis as different
factions shifted alliances for new MidEast campaigns.
As my good friend, producer Marc Levin, points out, the CIA has a term for it when one of their operations goes
awry and turns ugly, "It's called 'Blowback'." Levin produced an outstanding 1997 6 hour documentary on
CIA for PBS entitled, "CIA, America's Secret Warriors".
Special thanks to Ralph McGehee's CIA BASE
Program, Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin and various unnamed sources who prefer it.]
Argentina bomb trial a lesson in terror fight
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil  
Imad Mughniyah, a leader of the militant Islamic group Hezbollah in
Lebanon, is thought to be living in Iran. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials believe Mughniyah directed
the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in Beirut, in which Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem was murdered; the 1983
bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people; and the kidnapping of American hostages in
Lebanon in the 1980s. An Iranian intelligence official who defected to Germany told prosecutors in the Argentine
case that Mughniyah helped plan the Buenos Aires bombing.
He's believed to have had help from the Iranian Embassy in Argentina, an accusation the Iranian govt denies.
Argentina also alleged that Moshen Rabbani, a cultural attache at the embassy, had a role. "People should
see that these attacks (in Argentina and in the United States last week) are different sons from the same father. It
was like a preamble to what happened in New York," said Marta Nercellas, an attorney for the survivors and
victims' families. Argentine Jews, who number more than 300,000, make up the largest Jewish community in South
America. On the morning of 7.18.94, a white Renault van exploded in front of a 4 story building that housed the
Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association and the Delegation of Argentine-Israeli Associations. The building caught fire
and collapsed, killing 85 people and injuring 300. A 3.17.92 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires also
killed 23 people.
Jane's Foreign Report this week said Mughniyah allegedly kidnapped the head of the CIA station in Beirut, William
Buckley, and may have killed "Buckley with his own hands in March 1984." Jane's said that in 1985, a reported
combined operation of the CIA and Israel's Mossad exploded a car bomb in Lebanon at the the house of Hezbollah
Sheik Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, killing dozens, including one of Mughniyah's brothers. Israel's Feb. 1992
helicopter gunship slaying of Hezbollah Sheik Abbas Musawi and his family in Lebanon then was the trigger for
Hezbollah's attack a month later on Israel's Argentine Embassy. Jane's said that in December 1994, a car bomb in
Beirut killed another Mughniyah brother, Fuad, and 3 others.
The Argentina trial also is expected to shed light on the nearly lawless border area where Brazil, Argentina and
Paraguay meet in the southern cone of South America. The FBI in late 1999 placed an anti-terrorism investigator at
the U.S. Embassy in Paraguay's capital, Asuncion, to keep tabs on the area. Investigators in the Jewish center
bombing think much of the logistics and planning may have been done from that tri-border area, where customs
and immigration control often operate on bribes. Paraguay's internal security minister, Julio Fanego, said last week
that his country was stepping up document checks in Ciudad del Este, a border city. Several people were held for
fingerprinting to seek ties to the U.S. attacks.
Paraguayan investigators and U.S. sources described Mehri as a fund-raiser from Hezbollah and accused him of
copying thousands of CDs, which were used for recruiting. The CDs found in his apartment had interviews with
suicide bombers, images of suicide bombings and a call from a cleric to attack the U.S. & Israel.
The Accidental Operative Mondo Washington little regard for Osama bin Laden, whom she sneeringly refers to as a "tractor driver." She says he was inherited by the Taliban and is widely viewed as a "hang nail."
8.30.01 UPI
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Take the case of Zuhair Akkasha, who was well known not only in counterterrorist circles, but to the London police as a Palestinian fanatic capable of murderous action. Akkasha appeared in a London courtroom 12.15.75, charged with assaulting a policeman.
This was no subtle plotter or devious Carlos, moving along a well prepared underground network of safe houses and sympathizers, going to elaborate lengths to avoid being noticed. Akkasha was noticed but the British police failed to spot his real potential.
For his assault against a police officer, Akkasha was sentenced to 6 months in jail and deportation. He served his time and was expelled; within a year, he was back. An observant policeman spotted him in Wimpy bar.
He was followed and seen going into a building in a row of inexpensive accommodations. The observation was dutifully relayed to Scotland Yard, but significance of the sighting went unheeded.
2 months later, Akkasha waited in the lobby of the Royal Lancaster Hotel. When he spotted his target in the back seat of a car in front of the hotel, Akkasha opened the back door and shot to death former Yemeni prime minister Cadi Abdullah al-Hajari, his wife Fatima and embassy diplomat Abdullah al-Hammami
Although the triple murder was committed in public on a street in central London, Akkasha got away. 6 months later, he surfaced again as one of those responsible for the highjacking of a Lufthansa plane and forcing it to land at Mogadishu, identified as the highjacker who shot pilot Jurgen Schumann.
When a (German SAS equivalent) GSG9 team successfully assaulted the highjacked aircraft, Akkasha was one of the terrorists killed.
Terrorists tend to escalate their outrages. If you let a terrorist get away, he'll come back to haunt you. If his next attack is against an ally, that ally won't be grateful.
Deporting a known terrorist does not mean a country is successfully exporting his terror making capacity. It is setting him free and washing its hands of the problem.
With the United Nations unsuitable as a place to discuss and agree on the defeat of terrorism, counterterrorism created other forums such as, at a political level, a long-standing co-operation of Western intelligence services known as the Kilowatt Group created in 1977 upon an Israeli suggestion following Black September attack at 1972 Munich Olympic Games (successor org ENFOPOL), and the Club of Berne, and, operationally, the Intl Assn of Bomb Technicians & Investigators (AIBTI)"
"We view ourselves no differently than people who went down to Ground Zero with water & sandwiches to
help out the workers down there," Case told NPR's Ina Jaffe. "We were doing what we knew how to do, bring
together a marketing program, to bring a solution about." Case says that about 100 million Internet advertisement
"banners" have been distributed. A Web surfer clicking on one gets directed to the Rewards for Justice Fund, which
describes how donations are used and gives directions for contributing funds electronically. The fund received part
of the proceeds from an all-star benefit concert at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. that featured Michael Jackson,
Bette Midler and the Backstreet Boys. And the state of Florida may soon issue United We Stand license plates,
with the proceeds going to the fund. |
auth. After the Rain How the West Lost the East
during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. British intelligence and part of the Pakistani intelligence
community clashed with the US already during the Cold War period, because they wanted to support Ahmad Shah
Massoud, the "Lion of Panjshir". It was Massoud & his mujaheddin who finally, after getting Stingers from the
British, managed to make the war too expensive for the Soviets, forcing them to retreat in 1989. Meanwhile, the
CIA was incompetent enough to be dependent on the Pakistani intelligence services that, especially in Zia ul-Haq's
period, favored Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a pompous figure who claimed to have extensive contacts throughout the
Islamic world. He indeed had some contacts, incl with Osama bin Laden, but he was considered to be a KGB
provocateur by Massoud & many others, and was never of any help in the Afghan independence struggle. As far as I know, Osama bin Laden was never a CIA agent. However, there are relatively plausible claims that he was close to Saudi intelligence, esp. to the recently fired intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faizal, until they broke up. Osama first appeared in the Afghan War theater either in 1979, or, at the latest in 1984. But at the beginning he was first & foremost a businessman. He served the interests of those who wished to construct roads accessible for tanks to cross through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean. This might also explain his characteristic opportunism, quite atypical for a self-proclaimed warrior of faith. International jihadists surely want to portray him as a religious fighter or Muslim hero, but this is not the true picture, but, mostly, a myth created by the Western media. This is where Arab, Pakistani and Indonesian teenagers learn that Osama is a fighter in a universal struggle of Islam against its oppressors. But bin Laden never fought the Soviets to liberate Afghanistan. For most of this period, he was not even in Afghanistan. |
When Russia attacked Tajikistan, bin Laden & his folks were by no means interested in liberating Tajikistan
from a new communist yoke. Instead, bin Laden left Afghanistan and dispersed his terrorist network, directing it to
act against the West. It is bizarre that a man claiming to be an Islamic fundamentalist supported the invasion by the
Arab socialist (and thereby atheist) Iraq against Kuwait & Saudi Arabia, both with conservative Islamic
regimes. Al-Qaida's supported all causes & activities against the West: the US, Turkey, Israel, and any pro-
Western Muslim regime like Pakistan. Robbers on the island of Jolo in the Philippines qualified for Al-Qaida's
support although they hardly knew anything about the Qur'an. They were immediately portrayed as "Islamic
fighters". Even the strictly atheist anti-Turkish terrorist organization PKK has been welcomed. At the same time
they definitely have not supported Muslims advocating Turkish-modeled moderate independence, like the
Chechens, the original Tajik opposition or the Azeri govt under President Abulfaz Elchibey.
Q: The "Arab" fighters in Afghanistan, are they a state with a state, or the long arm for covert operations
(e.g., the assassination of Massoud) for the Taliban? Who is the dog and who is the tail?
A: The dog & tail can get very entangled here. Everybody is exploiting everybody, and finally all
organizations & states are tools which consist of individuals and used by them.
The Arabs form the hard core of Al-Qaida. They are the Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi etc. professional revolutionaries
& terrorists who have gathered around the figurehead of Osama bin Laden. Many of these share the same old
background in Marxist-inspired revolutionary movements in the Middle East. Ideology & facade have changed
when green replaced red, but their methods as well as foreign contacts have mainly remained the same. This is
why they are much more interested in attacking the West & pro-Western Muslim regimes than in supporting
any true national liberation movements. Even if they try to infiltrate & influence conflict outcomes in the
Balkans, the Caucasus, East Turkistan and Kashmir, they are set against the nationalist & secular, and
usually pro-Western, policies of the legitimate leadership of these secessionist movements. So the people whom
Al-Qaida may support and try to infiltrate are usually exiled or otherwise opposition forces acting in fact against the
idea of independence. This has been the case in Chechnya, Dagestan, Bosnia, Kashmir and so on.
And this has been the case in Afghanistan as well. Osama bin Laden & his Arabs never contributed to the
actual Afghan national liberation struggle. Instead they acted against it by infiltrating Afghan circles and turning
them against each other. Their jihad is not intended to defend the Muslims against infidel oppressors, but to cause
chaos and destruction, in which they apparently hope to overthrow Muslim regimes and replace them with the
utopia of Salafi rule. It is not hard to see how this set of mind was inherited from the communist utopian
terrorist movements that preceded the present Islamist ones. They had the same structures, the same cadres, the
same leaders, the same sponsors and the same methods.
The Arabs in Afghanistan have feathered their nests, though. Osama bin Laden & his closest associates have
all married daughters of Afghan elders from different factions and tribes and their sons & daughters have, in
turn, married the off-spring of eminent Afghan leaders. This is how they secured their foothold in Afghan social
networks, something neither the West nor Pakistan succeeded to do. When issues are reduced to family
relationships, it is not to be expected that the Afghans would hand over the Arabs to the West or to Pakistan.
Al-Qaida is not only fortifying itself physically, but also socially. At the same time their cells and countless
collaborating agencies, some of whom are clearly non-Islamist, and some of which are govt agencies of certain
hostile states, are hoping to escalate this "war against terrorism" and to exploit it for their own purposes.
The Afghans pleaded for guns, food, coats and money. If they were properly outfitted, they said, they could storm
Tora Bora and rout Bin Laden. But as the weeks passed, as biting winter brought the first snow clouds, and as U.S.
hesitation to send ground troops to the region became apparent, local commanders spoke with impatience and,
finally, bewilderment. "I don't think the U.S. wants to capture Osama," Zaman top aide Mohammed Alem
said in late November. "We know where he is, we tell them and they do nothing. So they are not as serious as they
say they are." When the Northern Alliance stormed into capital Kabul 11.13.01, provincial Taliban govts dissolved
throughout eastern Afghanistan, and Zaman came riding over the Khyber Pass from Pakistan. Guarded by a
young, ragged army, he returned to his family's stone house in Jalalabad and went to work plotting the ouster of
"Arabs" who he insisted were hiding in the mountains.
Zaman told anybody who would listen that bin Laden had moved a few hours south to Tora Bora. He told the tale of
a long convoy of Al Qaeda pickup trucks that rumbled out of the city and crept up into the hills. Accompanied by a
tribal elder from the Pakistani region of Parachinar, Bin Laden had headed for Tora Bora, Zaman said. Villagers
had watched him pass. "You know the infrastructure of Al Qaeda has broken down completely," Zaman said in
November. "If the allies help us, we can get them out of Tora Bora." Newly appointed security chief for the eastern
provinces Hazrat Ali was equally certain. "I know who is sending lunch & dinner from this city to Osama," he
said one afternoon in November. He refused to elaborate.
Afghans said bin Laden was accompanied by one of his sons & by Egyptian doctor Ayman Zawahiri who looks after bin Laden's health and is also considered his
most important advisor. They said the group included hundreds, even thousands, of hard-line followers from China,
Chechnya, Kashmir and the MidEast.
First week of December, anti-Taliban moujahedeen clambered to a rocky plateau on the northern edge of Tora
Bora. Far below, a dry riverbed lay like a spine on the drought-baked earth; abandoned terraces climbed the
hillsides. The soldiers whistled, clapped and shouted; they were glad to start the fighting. But even in the first flush
of battle, there was skepticism in the ranks. Commanders complained that their soldiers were being killed in
misguided air attacks and that incessant bombing made it difficult to penetrate Al Qaeda hide-outs on foot.
A soldier named Yar Mohammed squinted into the hills, a rocket launcher slung over one shoulder. "These whole
mountains are covered with caves, and across the mountain," he pointed, "is Pakistan. They could escape that
way." Whether the roads to Pakistan had been sealed already by snow was an open question in the early days of
the assault. At first, commanders claimed that Al Qaeda forces were cornered. But quietly, underlings contradicted
them. "We see they're escaping, but it's difficult to go forward in the hills," Shorab Khan said. "Yeah, it's
possible they can run away. We've blocked the roads as best we can."
It was an important point: south of Tora Bora lay the tribal areas of Pakistan, where lawlessness ruled and bin
Laden enjoyed strong support. Commanders said the path through the mountains had already been trodden by
fleeing Taliban leaders, including the chief of Nangarhar province, who'd reportedly taken shelter in Pakistan.
Eventually, it became clear that it was possible, even easy, to tramp through the snowdrifts into Pakistan. Around
Dec. 7, the soldiers overheard Bin Laden on the radio. He was still in Tora Bora, but "they were getting ready to
move," said Haji Zahir, another senior Afghan commander. The next morning, tribal scouts said they saw Bin Laden
picking his way over the hills on horseback. The Saudi exile was flanked by four Al Qaeda guards, commander Haji
Khalan Mir said.
The days slipped past. The Afghans said they caught sight of bin Laden, lost him, then found him again. In a
shadow dance of rumors and overheard radio transmissions, bin Laden became an almost mystical figure: moving,
moving, always moving. But this had always been the terrorist chief's way. One day, Zaman's scouts spotted blood
in the snow on the route to the Pakistani border. The commander's conclusion was ominous: Al Qaeda fighters
were escaping. The next day, Zaman & Ali, who seldom agreed on anything, spoke with renewed conviction of
bin Laden's presence. Both refused to explain what made them so suddenly, unwaveringly certain. "I'm 100%
sure Osama is here," Zaman said. "I send spies every day. They bring me the information." He paused, then gave
a curt warning: "If America continues like this, it's a mistake."
At the height of combat, about 100 members of the U.S. & British special forces were stationed in Tora Bora.
Otherwise, the U.S. kept an eye on the battle from the distant vantage of Tampa, FL. Afghan soldiers starved,
shivered and wrapped their wounds in blankets because there were no medicines, bandages or doctors. They
pressed toward the caves on the outskirts of the cave complex, only to be pushed back again. Foot soldiers
seesawed over the same ground day after day, sniping & ducking along the rocky trails.
At night, when temperatures plunged and the hunger pangs were sharp, the soldiers, many barely beyond
adolescence, climbed down from their posts and sought shelter in the mud houses of nearby farmers. One night,
they raided a network TV truck and devoured the crew's food. "We were hungry," they said with a shrug the next
day.
When morning broke, they battled their way back to the positions they'd abandoned the night before. "If we had
coats or shoes, we could go ahead," said Sarbaz Khan, who headed an Afghan squadron. "It's so cold at night we
can't hold our guns. Our blood freezes; it gets so we can't move easily." The Afghans had been holding walkie-
talkie negotiations with Al Qaeda fighters since the attacks began. Then, 12.11.01, a core group of Al Qaeda
fighters promised to turn themselves in at daybreak. But when the appointed hour arrived, eerie silence of the
cease-fire was broken by a torrent of bombs from U.S. warplanes. Gunfire cracked against the rocks.
"American bombing disturbed the negotiations," griped a commander named Ali Mohammed. "The Americans
ruined everything." Other Afghans were wary: The negotiations were nothing but a trick, they said, a way to buy
time. "Hundreds have already escaped," said Mir, the commander under security chief Ali. "And we are sure
Osama bin Laden escaped through this road to the Pakistani tribal areas."
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Report: al-Qaida headed to Lebanon
¹ Terrorist network looking for new home after Taliban defeat, U.K. paper says 2.1.02 R.Windrem (NY) D.Strieff (London) MSNBC, AP, Reuters
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network is trying to shift its base of operations to Lebanon following the fall of
the Taliban in Afghanistan, a British newspaper reported Friday. The report comes amid the airing of an interview in
which the Saudi dissident describes himself & his followers as "terrorists" and says the U.S. is
headed toward "unbearable hell." |