Global Politician, NY
Jan 7 2005
The Roots of Islamic Terrorism: How Communists Helped Fundamentalists
1/8/2005
By Antero Leitzinger
This article traces the roots of Islamic terrorism, with special
focus on Afghanistan. Notes are added on practical and philosophical
problems of world media in finding the right track. From systematic
errors in revealing little details, to serious misconceptions about
basic facts and principles, we can relatively easily learn how much
of “common knowledge” rests actually on superficial research and
popular myths. Instead of becoming critical and aware of the traps
laid around the issue, both Islamists and Islamophobes fail to
recognize how they are manipulated.
Terrorism is real
Terrorism is not as difficult a concept as some claim. It is a
political ideology (-ism) on the use of terror, which is arbitrary,
unrestricted and unspecified fear. This excludes traditional warfare
against regular armies and police forces, and individual
assassinations of public figures.
Neither separatism nor criminal violence as such is necessarily
terrorism. To call an act terrorism, we should always ask: Does this
really spread blind terror among the general populace? A bomb blown
in a market place, or in a civilian airplane, intends to create
common fear among customers and bystanders alike, because just about
anybody could become a victim. The victims are typically anonymous,
and the very idea of the act was to cause damage or a credible
threat. The assassination of a political leader, throwing stones on
occupation troops, or bombing of enemy positions during a declared
war or after an order to surrender has been given, may be repulsive
and kill innocent people, but there is no terror, if no average “man
of the street” needs to feel uneasy about his security the next day.
No women or children should need to fear that they could be mistaken
as presidents, soldiers, or military installations. Somebody may have
bad luck and be targeted accidentally, but if it is terrorism, we
will find ourselves asking: Why? What is the object?
Terrorism is rarely the ultimate end itself, as anarchy or communism
is thought to be, but merely a method to promote some politics. That
is why terrorists represent a political ideology. Even when they are
in fact nothing but common criminals or psychopaths, terrorists make
efforts to find a political excuse for their acts.
We know that not every political movement has created a terrorist
splinter group, or served as an excuse for terrorism. Actually,
terrorism has been the favourite method of extreme socialists only –
both of the (left-wing) international, and the (right-wing) national
varieties. Since the Jacobins of the French revolution held a “Reign
of Terror” in 1794, the international socialists (communists) and
national socialists (fascists) have shared a common tendency to use
terrorism.
A clear definition of terrorism helps to identify and trace it
through history. It can be dated and located. This makes it very real
– and thus also possible to be exterminated.
How Socialists became Islamic terrorists
Modern terrorism was born within a year, 1967-1968. International
socialists (communists) started the fashion all over the world
simultaneously, which should make us suspicious about the common
roots. National socialists followed suit, turning Marxists of Muslim
origin into Islamists of Marxist origin.
In May 18th, 1967, Yuri Andropov took over the leadership of the KGB.
The Russian security services evolved into a state within the Soviet
state, as it became clear when Andropov became the communist party’s
general secretary after Leonid Brezhnev’s death, in 1982. During
Andropov’s era, which was far longer than that of any other KGB
chief, the Soviet secret services supported international terrorism
through satellite states and Marxist “liberation fronts”. “On
becoming chairman of the KGB in 1967, Andropov immediately announced
his intention to revive KGB `special actions’ as an essential tool of
Soviet policy during the Cold War.” (Andrew & Mitrokhin, p. 374)
The man who became Andropov’s deputy was former Azerbaijani KGB chief
Semyon Tsvigun, who committed suicide on January 19th, 1982. His wife
was the sister of Brezhnev. Eduard Topol wrote a spy novel about the
case, titled “Red Square”. In the novel, Tsvigun’s widow accuses
Andropov for being an anti-Semite, organizing international
terrorism, and having his subordinate assassinated. Reality, however,
does not corroborate any rift within the KGB. Tsvigun’s son became a
KGB officer too, and was appointed as a Soviet diplomat in Cairo from
August 1984. Tsvigun’s son-in-law became the main supplier of arms to
Islamist terrorists in Afghanistan, by 1995.
On June 2nd, 1967, violent student demonstrators met the Shah of Iran
in West Germany. All of free Europe was plagued by student
demonstrations in May 1968, causing a nearly revolutionary situation
in France. Numerous left-wing terrorist cells were formed in Germany,
Italy, and other western countries. Their activities peaked in 1977,
after which the West German terrorists retired in communist East
Germany.
The (North Irish) IRA and (Basque) ETA started their terrorism in
1968, with peaks around 1976. Andropov considered an IRA request for
arms delivery for three years until subscribing it in 1972. (Andrew &
Mitrokhin, p. 378 and 384-385)
German and Italian left-wing terrorists cooperated by summer 1969,
and in October 1971, altogether 16 terrorist groups held a meeting in
Florence, Italy. Beside the IRA and ETA, many Palestinian and Latin
American (ERP, ELN, MLN, MIR) groups joined to the international
terror network by 1973.
In the USA, Soviet agents incited racial tension by writings in the
name of the Ku Klux Klan, and by a bomb explosion in New York City,
in summer 1971. (Andrew & Mitrokhin, p. 238) The same year, Soviet
agents made contacts to a Quebecois separatist group, the FLQ.
In Latin America, communist Cuba was the source of revolutionary
activities in many countries, although the KGB kept its own agents
there too. (Andrew & Mitrokhin, p. 386) In October 1967, “Che
Guevara”, whose girl-friend was an East German, was executed in
Bolivia, becoming a romantic idol for teenage girls. Thirty-four
years later, his picture could be seen on the T-shirts of young
Palestinian brawlers. In Mexico, the KGB was involved in student
riots from July to October 1968, prior to the Olympic Games. Uruguay
experienced urban guerrilla activities by the MLN, peaking between
1968 and 1972. Argentine followed between 1970 and 1975. Communists
had big hopes on Chile, but were bitterly disappointed by the
military coup in 1973.
By the end of the 1970s, communist optimism was definitely on the
decline everywhere in the world. At that point, the KGB desperately
needed any kind of a boost of revolutionary spirits. Surprisingly,
the Middle East came to rescue.
In December 1967, a Lebanese Christian, George Habash, who had been a
Pan-Arabic national socialist, had broadened his field by founding
the PFLP, a Palestinian organization. Although it split already by
the next year, the PFLP remained the most pro-Soviet Palestinian
terrorist group, with widest global ties. It caused the Central
Committee of the Soviet Communist Party to adopt the Palestinian
cause in 1968. In July 1970, Andropov allowed the first direct Soviet
arms delivery to the PFLP. From that on, both the KGB and – perhaps
even more so – the Russian military intelligence, GRU, provided
Palestinian terrorists with arms and training. (Segaller, p. 126-127;
Livingston & Halevy, p. 140; Lunev, p. 80; Kuzichkin, p. 206; Andrew
& Mitrokhin, p. 381) From 1972 on, this was co-ordinated by Habash,
who had close connections to Japanese and Latin American terrorist
groups. (Livingston & Halevy, p. 208-209)
The man chiefly responsible for exporting Palestinian terrorism was
Wadi Haddad, deputy leader of the PFLP, recruited as agent
“Natsionalist” by the KGB in 1970. Andropov revealed his aims in a
report to Brezhnev himself: “The nature of our relations with W.
Haddad enables us to control the external operations of the PFLP to a
certain degree, to exert influence in a manner favorable to the
Soviet Union and also to carry out active measures in support of our
interests through the organization’s assets while observing the
necessary conspirational secrecy.” (Andrew & Mitrokhin, p. 380)
The once fashionable airplane hijackings had been begun by the PFLP
in July 23rd, 1968. At that time, the Soviet Union, having supported
the establishment of Israel and armed its forces 20 years earlier,
had already invested a lot of resources into the Palestinian cause
and Arab Socialism. Arms had been initially smuggled through Egypt.
(Barron, p. 77)
“By the summer of 1968, the Soviet Union had progressed far toward
converting Egypt into its principal base of subversion against the
Arab world.” (Barron, p. 62) Thirty-three years later, Egypt was the
principal base of Islamic terrorists. Soviet Union, however, failed
in Egypt. In May 1971, Anwar Sadat wiped out most of KGB agents. In
July 1972, Soviet advisors were expelled from Egypt. Eight years
later, Sadat paid for this with his life, being assassinated by
members of an Islamist group. Sadat’s peace policy toward Israel made
it easy for the remnants of the KGB network to ally with the
right-wing Muslim Brotherhood. This is the background of Ayman
az-Zawahiri, the second man of al-Qayda.
Yasser Arafat’s al-Fatah organization received its first Soviet arms
shipment in September 1972. Palestinians were, however, split into
pro-Iraqi and pro-Syrian parties and factions. Although both Iraq and
Syria were ruled by an Arab Socialist Baath party, and extremely
friendly toward the Soviet Union after the end of 1950s, the
deepening friction between these two Arab states cut through the
Palestinians, and frustrated Soviet efforts to unite Arabs against
Israel and the western world.
The Yom Kippur War of 1973, and the subsequent oil embargo from
October 1973 to March 1974, which was aimed against the USA, taught
the KGB two lessons: that the traditional, orthodox Arab Socialist
partners and their Palestinian proxies could not be trusted and
achieved little through military endeavours and terrorism; but that
the future was economic, and lay with the oil-fields in Saudi Arabia
and Gulf emirates. Thus Political Islam, or Islamism, replaced
Socialism as the most promising basis for winning Arab hearts and
hurting western interests in the Middle East. After the debacle in
Egypt, the KGB turned toward Saudi Arabia, where King Faysal had been
assassinated in May 1975, and King Khalid ruled until 1982. Here, the
KGB could find most valuable connections through the Muslim
Brotherhood.
The key link may have been Muhammad Maruf ad-Dawalibi, former Prime
Minister of Syria, and founder of the Islamic Socialist Front in
autumn 1949. He had declared already in April 1950, that Arabs would
prefer “thousands time more to become a Soviet Republic than to be
spoils of Jews”. (Reissner, p. 332, 355 and 422-423) Dawalibi’s
preference for Soviet rule had not been shaken by Soviet support for
Israel as late as September 1951. Instead, he recommended Arab
leaders to seek even harder for Soviet support. (Reissner, p. 357 and
366) Dawalibi was exiled from Syria, but he became a councellor of
King Khalid, and the chairman of the Islamic Conference that convened
in Pakistan in 1976. (Reissner, p. 394 and 423)
Saudi Arabia became after 1974 the main financier of international
terrorism, regardless of the professed Atheism of Palestinian Marxist
groups. For example, only in the year 1989, the PLO received 85
million US$ and Hamas 72 million US$ Saudi payments. At the same
time, Kuwait too financed Hamas with 60 million US$. (Goodwin, p.
16-17)
This policy, explained as payoffs to keep terrorists away from Saudi
targets, was supervised by the Saudi intelligence chief, the king’s
nephew, Prince Turki, from 1977 until his unexplained sacking at the
end of August, 2001.
Another Saudi god-father of Islamism was the senile Mufti Abdulaziz
Bin Baz (d. 1999), who declared that the sun revolved around the
earth (1966), and that the earth was flat (1969), among other equally
“Islamic” doctrines. (Goodwin, p. 211) With Saudi money, such ideas
where transmitted through the Islamic Conference, and its organizer,
the Muslim World League, all over Muslim world.
Iraq was in mid-1970s Russia’s most trusted ally in the Muslim world
(except for South Yemen, which was already officially a Soviet
satellite), and the only nominally non-communistic state, where the
KGB ceased its activities, because there appeared to be no need for
any supervision. When Saddam Hussein had some Iraqi communists
executed, in May 1978, the KGB became worried, but the outbreak of
Iraqi-Iranian war in 1980, came as a surprise to Soviet diplomacy.
For a while, Soviet Union wavered in whom to support, but when the
USA, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia had made their choice for Iraq, the
Soviet Union switched sides. Following this, many Soviet-sponsored
terrorists had to move from Iraq to Iran, Syria, or Lebanon.
Iran became Russia’s most loyal ally after the Islamic revolution in
1979. This relationship has lasted over two decades, and is still
cherished by the Islamists among Shi’ite clergy and security
services. When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan later the same year,
there was only one spontaneous demonstration in Tehran, after which
Iran has tamely followed Russia’s actions against neighbouring Muslim
people.
The Iranian revolution took the KGB by surprise, but it was a
pleasant surprise, and the Soviet Union choose to side with the
Islamist revolutionaries already by November 1978. Azerbaijan’s
contemporary president, former party leader and KGB chief (a
successor and friend of Tsvigun), Hayder Aliyev, was the expert on
Middle East, who had soon convinced the Politburo, that Ayatollah
Khomeini should be supported by the Soviet Union. (Taheri, p. 218)
This assessment caused a permanent division within the Iranian
communist (Tudeh) party, because it was instructed to support
Khomeini despite the doubts of the party’s own general secretary. He
was replaced by a relative of Khomeini. (Kuzichkin, p. 264 and 285)
Among the closest associates of Khomeini, there were many Communists
who had conveniently grown beards. Mustafa Ali Chamran had studied in
California and Egypt before he founded a Red Shi’ite secret society.
His pupils included later foreign minister Ibrahim Yazdi, oil
minister Mohammed Gharazi, and a Lebanese fellow student in Berkeley
University, Hussein Shaikh al-Islam, who led the occupation of the US
Embassy in Tehran. This occupation, shortly before the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, focused Iranian radicalism into
anti-Americanism. (Taheri, p. 78 and 139-140) Mohammed Beheshti,
whose death at a bombing on June 28th, 1981, remained a mystery, had
resided in East Germany. Khomeini’s early companion and foreign
minister, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, was a link to Syria. Most left-wing
radicals were repressed only after summer 1981, by which time many
former Communists had successfully accommodated with the new regime.
Both Ghotbzadeh and Chamran had received Palestinian terrorist
training. As a student in the USA, Ghotbzadeh had been recruited by
the GRU. (Livingston & Halevy, p. 153-154; Kuzichkin, p. 302)
“It is significant that anti-Americanism was first propagated as a
major theme of Muslim fundamentalism by young men and women from
Islamic countries who had spent time in the United States as students
or workers.” (Taheri, p. 206) These included the founding father of
the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Said Qutb, who had lived in the USA
for two years around 1949/1950. The four pilots of September 11th,
2001, included one native German citizen, whose Moroccan father was
no Islamist at all, a Lebanese of liberal background, and a United
Arab Emirates’ subject, both of whom had spent five years in Germany,
and the Egyptian-born terrorist leader Muhammad Atta, who had
immigrated into Germany nine years earlier.
Daniel Pipes’ article “The Western Mind of Radical Islam” describes
well, how so many Islamic terrorists actually adopted more ideas from
contacts to western society than from their own traditions:
“Fundamentalist leaders tend to be well acquainted with the West,
having lived there, learned its languages, and studied its cultures.
… Indeed, the experience of living in the West often turns
indifferent Muslims into fundamentalists. … In contrast to this
ostentatious familiarity with Western ways, fundamentalists are
distant from their own culture. … Having found Islam on their own
as adults, many fundamentalists are ignorant of their own history and
traditions.” ()
This became very obvious through the biographies of those who
committed the suicide attacks of September 2001, and who were
typically from wealthy families, liberally educated, and had lived
many years in Hamburg, London, and America. Pipes takes notice of the
fact that “fundamentalist Muslims” (or rather, “Islamists”, as they
care little of traditions and their true fundaments), have introduced
distinctly Christian notions into their religion. He presents plenty
of detailed examples, among others that “fundamentalists have turned
Fridays into a Sabbath, something it had not previously been. …
Ignorant of the spirit underlying the Shari’a, fundamentalists
enforce it along territorial, not personal lines…”
(), and so forth.
While original Islamic law had complex separate provisions for Jews
and Christians, Islamists tend to regard them as intolerantly as
non-Christians used to be regarded in pre-19th century Europe.
Islamists also tend to confuse Islamic concepts (f. ex. regarding
ritual purity, food prescriptions, etc.) with similar but not
identical Christian concepts. A visible example is the uniform-like
“Islamic head-scarf”, which could be derived rather from
prescriptions in the Epistle of St. Paul than from interpretations of
the Koran, or from traditional customs. There is also a curious
tendency to threat apostates with death sentence (while the Koran
forbids the use of force in matters of religion), and to prevent
female followers from marrying Christian men, while men have always
been allowed to marry Christian women, and the Koran explicitly
orders the same marriage restrictions or exemptions equally for both
sexes. Actually, it was the Christian Canon and laws (for example in
Russia until the beginning of 20th century), that threatened an
apostate with death penalty and prevented mixed marriages. When
Christian societies found out that such laws had no base in religion,
Islamists took them over, although they had even less base in Islam.
For example, in the Malaysian state of Sabah, Muslim women were
banned from mixed marriages only after the 1970s, when Islamism
became a global fashion. Fundamentally anti-Islamic fashions and
interpretations of religion were exported from Saudi Arabia globally
since the 1970s, with heavy financial backing.
Pipes describes the way Islamists “have set up church-like
structures. The trend began in Saudi Arabia, where the authorities
built a raft of new institutions…, for example: the Secretary of
the Muslim World League, the Secretary General of the Islamic
Conference… The Islamic Republic of Iran soon followed the Saudi
model and went beyond it…”
()
Anti-Americanism became a strong common denominator for not only
Muslims, but also Christians and Atheists in the Middle East. This
was not so surprising, since not only Habash, but also another
Marxist Palestinian party leader, Nayef Hawatmeh of the DFLP, was a
Christian. (IHT 9.8.1999) The PLO included many Christian Arabs, but
since 1985, it too adopted an “Islamic” policy. Arafat’s own Al-Fatah
organization together with the Communist Party of Jordan allied with
the Muslim Brotherhood. (Bodansky, p. 21)
In the Karabakh conflict, Khomeini supported Christian Armenians,
whose terrorist movement ASALA had been originally established by a
former Iraqi member of the PFLP, “Hagop Hagopian”, and had shared
common training camps in Lebanon with the PFLP, from 1977 to 1982.
(Seale, p. 337-338)
After July 1983, ASALA disappeared in the same Lebanese valley, where
another anti-Turkish organization, the PKK, emerged next summer. This
was no novelty, since pro-Soviet Armenians had participated in the
founding of an anti-Turkish Kurdish party already in 1927 – also in
Lebanon. Both ASALA and PKK were rumoured to have been brainchildren
of a Soviet Armenian KGB officer Karen Brutents. (MN 10.3.1999)
Another Armenian terrorist faction, renamed ARA, moved from Iraqi and
PFLP protection to Iranian and Lebanese (actually Syrian) custody by
the end of 1984. This coincided with the swift of Soviet sympathy
from Iraq to Iran during the Iraqi-Iranian war. (Taheri, p. 112 and
278) They were activated against Azerbaijani Muslims in 1987.
The “Islamic revolution” in Iran inspired also frustrated left-wing
Arabs. The Arab world had been demoralized by the 1973 war, by
failure to gain enough from the oil crisis, and by the Lebanese civil
war in 1975-1976. Even a Christian Marxist like Jérôme Shahin came to
the conclusion, that neither Arab Socialism nor Pan-Arabic unity, but
only Islam could inspire Arab “masses”. Another Marxist, Anwar
Abdulmalek, advocated “Political Islam”, and described Khomeini as
“progressive by definition” because of the innate anti-Americanism of
Islamic heritage. The “Abdelmalek-Shahin syndrome” gave suddenly hope
to alienated left-wing intellectuals. (Sivan, p. 161-168)
Islamism became the new ideology for Algerian independence champion
Ahmad Ben Bella (1984), who had been decorated with a Lenin medal
twenty-one years earlier. (Taheri, p. 192-193 and 296) In Morocco,
Socialists turned into Islamists included Abdulkarim Moti and
Abdussalam Yassine. (Taheri, p. 195) The latter published an open
letter to the king in 1974, was imprisoned, and lives still under
house arrest as the leader of Adl wa Ihsane (Justice and Well-fare)
Party. (NZZ 2.7.1999)
This conversion from Marxism to Islam was no worse a spiritual
problem than the conversion of traditionally deeply Roman Catholic
nationalist organizations like the IRA and ETA, into Marxist
terrorist groups in the 1960s. German right-wing terrorists of the
Wehrsportgruppe felt no problems either, in being trained in 1981 by
left-wing Palestinians in Lebanon. (NZZ 8.1.1985)
Despite possible ideological objections, those communists and other
extremists, who remained loyal to Russia’s strategic mission in the
Middle East, were ready to serve it under a new ideological disguise.
This was noticed by some researchers by mid-1980s: “The most
significant new factor is the Soviet realization that two movements –
radical-revivalist Islam (commonly but misleadingly called
`fundamentalist’) and traditionalist Islam – have become the most
decisive trends in the Muslim world, and that if Moscow is to have
any influence there, it must find a way to exploit and manipulate
them – particularly the radical-revivalists, who are most useful to
them. … They know that their hopes for success lie in persuading
the radical-revivalist Muslims to see the Soviets as an instrument to
be used against a common enemy, the West.” (Afghanistan…, p. 244)
Soviet Islamists in Afghanistan
Russia has long traditions in the political art of provocation,
dating back to the imperial age, when the secret police finally lost
track of its own web of “agents provocateurs”, who successfully
infiltrated and compromised opposition parties by committing
themselves to so serious crimes, that they could just as well be
considered revolutionaries in police disguise. Provocations were
adopted by the Soviet secret services, and widely used in the “ethnic
conflicts” that appeared suddenly in Central Asia and the Caucasus,
between 1987 and 1993. (See: Caucasus…!)
Provocations were exercised already during the invasion of
Afghanistan, as has been recently (in February 2002) revealed by
Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB officer from 1956 to 1984, who prepared a
secret report in 1987 and defected to Britain in 1992. He describes
“false flag” operations, where “Soviet-trained Afghan guerrilla units
posed as CIA-supported, anti-Soviet mujahidin rebels [Islamic
freedom-fighters] to create confusion and flush out genuine rebels”.
In January 1983, there were 86 such “false bands”, trained by KGB
officer V. Kikot of the 8th Department of the “Directorate S”. Kikot
was transferred from Cuba, and was acquainted with training
Palestinian terrorists. There were also over 110 agents infiltrated
in Iran and over 200 agents in Pakistan, including Murtaza Bhutto,
son of the former president and brother of the future prime minister.
(WP 24.2.2002; IHT 25.2.2002)
Former KGB general Oleg Kalugin assured correctly on a BBC World News
TV discussion on September 23rd, 2001, that there were more
terrorists of al-Qayda who had been trained by the KGB than by the
CIA, but his words were not taken seriously by other debaters, who
preferred to blame the prevailing poverty in Palestinian refugee
camps, American non-involvement there, American involvement in
assisting Afghan freedom-fighters in the 1980s, and global
inequality, as breeding-grounds for terrorism. For some reason,
logically inconsistent and practically unfounded theories remain far
more popular in western media than the simple facts confessed by
top-ranking ex-Soviet officials.
Afghan freedom fighters recognized Gulbuddin Hikmatyar as a KGB
provocateur already by 1985. Two-thirds of the conflicts between
Afghan guerrilla factions were caused by KGB provocation. (Bradsher,
p. 295; Afghanistan…, p. 203-227 and 395) This should have been no
surprise, since Hikmatyar is told to have spent four years in the
Afghan communist party (PDPA) before becoming a “devout” Muslim.
() Even an Afghan
left-wing feminist group accuses Hikmatyar for participation in an
assassination carried out by the KGB in 1985.
()
“The Soviets manipulated and exploited Gulbaddin Hekmatiyar’s Hizbi-i
Islami [Islamic Party] primarily through the numerous agents in his
military council, which included representatives not only from the
Muslim Brotherhood but also from Libya, Iran, and the PLO. In the
mid-1980s, Gulbaddin Hekmatiyar was known to have visited Libya and
Iran and was rumored to have visited the PDRY [communist South
Yemen].” (Bodansky, p. 22-23)
As CNN’s reporter Richard Mackenzie has said, Hikmatyar “gained
notoriety in Afghanistan for killing more fellow Mujahideen than he
did communists.”
Many observers predicted early enough, what would be the alternative
to communist power in Kabul: “Since 1978 the Communist regimes in
Kabul have consistently identified Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the most
radical figure, as the primary or even the sole leader of the entire
Resistance… In the event that the Communist regimes in Kabul were
ever to be replaced or joined by the most radical elements in the
Resistance and these elements attempted to implement their extremist
programs, it appears certain that they would meet with massive public
opposition, setting off disorders which would provide the Soviets
with an opportunity to return in the guise of providing stability. In
such a case, an international community convinced that the Afghans
are `incapable’ of self-government would hardly protest.”
(Afghanistan…, p. 9) This was very much what happened indeed, and
within 15 years from this prophesy, the time seemed ripe for Russia
to make it happen.
Although Hikmatyar was (like the Taliban leaders later) a Sunni
Muslim, he regarded Iran as his model, and took refugee in Iran,
where he sympathized the Taliban until he was forced to disappear
from Tehran in February 2002. A great mystery, wondered by many
western researchers and journalists who had observed the Afghan war,
was how notoriously anti-American Hikmatyar, despite his bad
reputation and terrorist sympathies, became a favourite of the
Pakistani ISI (until 1993), and thus a main recipient of US military
aid for Afghan guerrillas in the mid-1980s. Several explanations,
including KGB infiltration of the CIA (or rather ISI), have been
provided. (Arney, p. 160-161; IHT 28.1.1994)
The most probable explanation is simply that the CIA possessed more
money than wisdom. A former CIA agent, Reuel Marc Gerecht, described
in his article “The Counterterrorist Myth”, how throughout the Afghan
war, the Directorate of Operations never developed a team of Afghan
experts. The first case officer to have some proficiency in an Afghan
language did not arrive until 1987. After 1989, the CIA abandoned
Afghanistan, in the firm belief that the Cold War was over, and for
the following ten years, no CIA official paid a visit to the
legendary commander Ahmadshah Masud in Afghanistan, to learn that the
war was far from over yet.
()
Although American contribution to the Afghan war has been
exaggerated, it remains a dark cloud over the CIA’s credibility. The
British were critical about CIA’s policy, and far more efficient by
providing Stinger missiles to Masud, who used them to expel the
Russians. Hikmatyar sold his Stingers to Iran in 1987. (Cooley, p. 92
and 173)
Russia’s aid for the communist army exceeded all foreign aid to the
guerrillas. From 1986 to 1990, the USA sent weapons worth of 2,5 to
3,2 billion US$ and Saudi Arabia for the same amount, while the
Soviet Union provided an arsenal worth an estimated 5,7 billion US$,
according to moderate estimates. (Goodwin, p. 16 and 82; NZZ
26.-27.9.1998; Reuters 1.4.2001) Saudi Arabia may have continued
financing its own proxies in the years 1991-1992. But this was
certainly more than equalled by Russia’s shipments, estimated as high
as worth of 4 billion US$ annually (20-30 daily flights), continuing
at least until 1991. (Khabir Ahmad’s report in “Venäjän ja
Itä-Euroopan instituutin Tiedonantoja ja katsauksia” 3/2001)
There are discrepancies between the numbers presented in different
sources, but whatever reasons the USA may have had for spending money
on Hikmatyar, Russia’s legacy prolonged the most destructive civil
war beyond the official disintegration of the Soviet Union and the
fall of Kabul.
Afghan communists have a broad history of “turning coats”, or to be
more accurate, of growing beards and adopting the title “Mullah”
attached to a pseudonym. Prior to the Soviet invasion, the communists
had been divided into three factions:
Maoist radicals of the Khalq faction, led by Hafizullah Amin (1979),
who was deposed by the Soviets. These included army officer Turan
Abdurrahman, who joined the guerrilla already in 1979, and reappeared
as “Mullah Borjan”, the supreme commander of the Taliban military in
1996, before he was killed under unknown circumstances;
Moderates of the Khalq faction, led by Nurmuhammad Taraki
(1978-1979), who was deposed by Amin. These included defence minister
Shahnawaz Tanai, and several other generals, who joined Hikmatyar
between 1990 and 1992, but defected to the Taliban by 1996,
organizing their air force, air defence (Muhammad Gilani), artillery
(Shah Sawar), communications units, military intelligence, and
security services (Muhammad Akbar);
Kremlin loyalists of the Parcham faction, led by Babrak Karmal
(1979-1986), Najibullah (1986-1992), and Abdurrashid Dostum, who is
an ethnic Uzbek general. Dostum’s air force bombed Kabul to ruins
before it too defected to the Taliban in May 1997. Dostum himself
joined the “Northern Alliance” with the legal government only when he
was reduced to military marginality, and although he generously
received an office in Kabul, he would still like to challenge the
interim government, and remains a trouble-maker in the northern
provinces, with support from Uzbekistan.
Taliban commandants were identified in an excellent article by
Stéphane Allix in Le Monde diplomatique, January 1997. They all had a
past in the communist Khalq faction. The KGB was not supposed to
recruit agents among them, but concentrated on the Parcham faction,
(Kuzichkin, p. 312) but the GRU must have been interested specially
in recruiting Khalq officers.
The founder of the Taliban, “Mullah” (without much of clerical
education) Omar, was a comrade-in-arms of “Mullah Borjan” in the
Islamic Revolutionary Movement, before they founded a new party of
their own, by autumn 1994. Their credentials in the resistance were
marginal compared to those of Masud. The same applies to Osama Bin
Ladin, who arrived in Pakistan by 1984 and may have participated in
one battle but boasted as a war veteran to his young idolaters.
According to CIA agent Milton Bearden, Bin Ladin fought a battle only
in spring 1987, although his biographer Yossef Bodansky, blessed with
rather vivid imagination, credits him also with a couple of
skirmishes in 1986 and 1989. (Bodansky, p. 19 and 25)
Actually, when the Palestinian organizer of Arab aid, Abdullah Azzam,
wanted to send volunteers, money, and arms to assist Masud, Bin Ladin
had his mentor assassinated in autumn 1989, took over the
organization (al-Qayda), sent the volunteers back home (Kabul
remained to be liberated, as well as the rest of Central Asia), and
let Hikmatyar have the rest. Bin Ladin left his base in the Pakistani
frontier town of Peshawar in an unexplained panic (telling that Saudi
Arabia had hired the ISI to kill him), in 1991, while communists were
still in power in Kabul, and just when things started to move in
Soviet Central Asia. He had quite apparently no interest in
destabilizing the Russian sphere of influence, and in contrary,
directed the activities of Arab adventurers against pro-American
governments.
During the Afghan war, Arabs hanging around in the region had been of
little use (the Afghans detested them because of their religious
fervour, lack of respect for traditions, and boasting habit), and
although they pretended to be interested in Afghanistan, they were in
fact hiding in Peshawar from their own police. When visiting
Afghanistan, they were merely tolerated because of their connections
to financial aid. (NZZ 26.-27.9.1998) Most of the “Arab Afghans” were
Egyptians in exile, but some Arab countries dumped there common
criminals. In 1991, they were recruited to fight in Algeria, and in
1993-1994, they were used by Hikmatyar to assist Aliyev and
Russian-sponsored terrorists in Azerbaijan. (Cooley, p. 178-179)
Bin Ladin returned to Afghanistan only when in need of refuge for
himself, invited by Hikmatyar in 1996, and soon found out, that
meanwhile, all his fellow terrorists had defected – alongside with
the communist generals – to the self-appointed “Mullah” Omar. Bin
Ladin followed suit.
Russia’s sponsorship of the Taliban and al-Qayda
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 Hikmatyar, 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 defence minister Masud, the archenemy 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 were channelled not only through the
above-mentioned agents, but also directly by flights from Russia, and
probably overland through Turkmenistan. This started before Bin
Ladin’s arrival, and Bin Ladin – through his Egyptian connections,
close to Hikmatyar – 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 Masud, 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. Rossiiskiye
Vesti wrote in September 1994, that the Tajik civil war could be
finished only by pacifying Afghanistan. (The Times 8.5.1995)
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 the 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 the Californian-based UNOCAL and the Saudi Arabian Delta
Oil companies were attracted to the project by October 1995.
Originally, also the 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 1/7.1.2002)
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. (IPS 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)
Turkmenistan’s Afghan connections, both economical and political,
remained relatively unnoticed by the media, because the country was
almost as closed from the outside world as it used to be during the
Soviet times. After the Taliban’s defeat and the escape of al-Qayda
militants toward the north-east corner of Iran, or toward
Turkmenistan, Niyazov had to cut his links by a thorough purge in the
army and secret services. Muhammad Nazarov, chief of the KNB (Turkmen
KGB), was publicly reprimanded, demoted from four-star general to
lieutenant general, and dismissed on March 13th, 2002. He was
replaced by the interior minister. The defence minister and head of
military counterintelligence, Gurbanduri Begenzhev, also lost his
posts in disgrace. The same happened to Khosse Reyymov, another major
general, who had been responsible for border controls. The changing
of the guard came as a surprise as just weeks before, the security
services were being presented as a pillar of Niyazov’s authoritarian
regime. Some sources suggested that the US ambassador had complained
in private to Niyazov of crime within the Turkmen secret services.
Niyazov’s “fight against infection” within the KNB began immediately
after the meeting. (TOL 18.3.2002)
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, Viktor But (Victor Bout), 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 But’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, an
well-armed Taliban advanced all the way to Kabul.
“By August the [Taliban] group was broke and desperate. Yet suddenly
they were rolling in cash and confidence. On Sept. 27 the Taliban
marched into Kabul. Former mujahedin commanders close to the Taliban
say the bonanza arrived courtesy of Osama bin Ladin… Afghan and
Western sources say bin Laden’s gift to Omar amounted to $3 million.”
(Newsweek 13.10.1997) According to Russian sources, the money,
exactly three million US$, was a “ransom” paid directly by Russia.
(Interfax 29.8.1996) Perhaps it did not make much of a difference,
who delivered the money – and much more than worth of that in arms –
to the Taliban?
Viktor But 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 23.12.2000) He served as navigator in the Soviet air force,
and graduated from the Military Institute for Foreign Languages in
Moscow, known as a GRU spy school. By 1991, But had a career in the
KGB, assisted by his father-in-law, who was no less a character than
the Brezhnev family member Tsvigun. (Guardian 23.12.2000)
After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, But served in UN peace
troops in Angola. (Sunday Telegraph 22.7.2001) He still has a house
in Johannesburg, now used as a brothel. In 1995, But 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)
But’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 United Arab Emirates 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. (LAT 20.1.2002) For
Clinton’s administration, 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
17.2.2002)
Russian disinformation labelled 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 But’s role as Taliban’s lifeline. Arms 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. (WT 11.11.2001)
But has 250-300 employees, probably mostly Russians, Ukrainians, and
Armenians. According to a Russian newspaper, the Komsomolskaya
Pravda, But’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-Qayda militants to Ukraine.
The “Pakistani smuggler” was, however, But’s associate, and the
destination probably Transdnestria.
But 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 But for
years, and could guarantee, that he was not in Russia. (LAT
26.2.2002) But’s brother had a house in Islamabad. (WP 26.2.2002)
On February 28th, 2002, the head of the Russian Interpol office
proudly declared, that after four years of investigations, Russian
law-enforcement agencies could assure, that But was nowhere in
Russia. At the same time, But 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?” But asked philosophically. He
repeated the common claim that “Americans helped in cultivating the
Taliban and controlled it through Pakistan.” (NYT 1.3.2002)
The same night, a Russian Interior Ministry spokesman explained that
police were not seeking to arrest But, because they had no evidence
of any wrongdoing. (LAT 1.3.2002) Instead, the Russian media started
to explain that But was only working for a Ukrainian Jew, Vadim
Rabinovich, who must be an Israeli agent. This claim had been
originally presented by the reorganized Russian foreign intelligence
service SVR. (Der Spiegel 1/7.1.2002)
The But affair may have required from Russia more than just diversion
in the media. In mid-October 2001, tension between Russian and
Abkhazian border was very high, and experts predicted an “anti-terror
invasion” of Georgia by Russian forces. This did not happen, however,
as suddenly everything cooled down. At the same time, Russia’s
foreign ministry had protested The Washington Times’ report about
al-Qayda’s arms trade relations to “Russian mafia”, asking for
exchange of information between security services. (RFE/RL Russian
Federation Report 1.10.2001; DN 16.10.2001) When the But affair was
discussed in public, in February 2002, Georgia invited US military
assistance. This caused a fury in Russia, but unexpectedly, the
Kremlin appeared paralyzed to react.
Some years ago, Clinton’s Russia expert Strobe Talbott had
entertained great expectations because the FBI was allowed to open an
office and to train Russian colleagues to fight terrorism in Moscow.
This was before the spy scandal of the FBI. They failed, however, to
investigate the September 1999 terror wave, which was pinned
collectively on Chechens, but was obviously committed by Russian
secret services. At the end of October, 2000, FSB colonel Aleksandr
Litvinenko sought asylum in Britain and claimed to have evidence of
FSB’s guilt for the bombings. (Monitor 2.11.2000; BBC 6.11.2000)
Other Russians have expressed suspicions on GRU’s involvement. (The
Independent 6.11.2000; Monitor 11.1.2000; TN 3.2.2000) Interpol, the
FBI, and their Russian colleagues appear to be unable not only to
investigate terrorism but also to apprehend well-known Russian
“merchants of death” in Moscow, despite of international warrants for
arrest.
Talbott’s “post-Cold War” thesis was that simple good will, trusting
Russian officials, and supporting financially Russia’s supposedly
reforming institutions, would pay back in the form of increasing
mutual trust and genuine friendship. According to a polling conducted
by the US State Department, quite the opposite has happened: over 70
% of Russians had a favourable opinion of the USA in 1993, but only
37 % in February 2000. (Forbes.Com 31.10.2000)
There might indeed be a Chechen connection, but hardly the like
Interpol’s Russian officials would be investigating: 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 Ladin’s associates blew up buildings
there. US federal prosecutors found a letter between terrorists, who
repeatedly referred to the group’s members in Kenya by the code name
“the fish people”. (NYT 23.1.2000) The arms flown by But’s company to
Afghanistan were listed as “fish from Tanzania”. (WT 11.11.2001)
Where do fish dwell? Perhaps in an aquarium, which happens to be the
nickname of the GRU headquarter in Moscow…
()
Also, the PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan’s decision to fly to Nairobi, in
February 1999, may be added to a list of curious East African
coincidences.
We should also remember the career of Yevgeni Primakov, KGB operative
in Egypt in the 1960s, chief of the SVR from 1991 to 1996, foreign
minister from 1996 to 1998, and prime minister from 1998 to 1999. His
appointment into Chernomyrdin’s government in December 1996 followed
two months after the sacking of Aleksandr Lebed, the popular general
who made peace in Chechnya and advocated strong measures against the
Taliban. “The rivalry between SVR and foreign ministry … ended in
decisive victory for the SVR with Primakov’s appointment as foreign
minister … in December 1996.” (Andrew & Mitrokhin, p. 562)
Primakov appears to have carried with him a sharp policy change:
instead of negotiating a final peace deal with the Chechens, as had
been agreed by Lebed, the FSB encouraged provocative Islamists, who
committed murders and kidnappings from 1997 to 1999, scaring most
foreign aid workers and reporters out of the land, and providing the
Russian government with an excuse for a renewed intervention.
Obviously, this was a method successfully exercised in Afghanistan to
oust the Rabbani government from Kabul.
During his travels in the Middle East in the 1980s, Primakov had been
known to talk about Free Mason and Jewish conspiracies. (Andrew &
Mitrokhin, p. 573)
According to a Russian newspaper article by Oleg Lurye, Bin Ladin’s
cousin had meetings with the daughter of Boris Yeltsin. (RFE/RL
Business Watch 12.3.2002)
Soviet Islamists in Russia
Islamists in modern Russia are KGB-trained provocateurs, who fight
traditions and nationalism, and dream about a re-established Soviet
Union. Their perception of Islam resembles more a Communist
caricature than the historical roots of ethnically mainly Caucasian
and Tatar Muslims. To understand the development to this better,
KGB’s activities in the Middle East can be divided in five-year
periods:
1968-1972 the KGB puts great hopes on international terrorism in
general, and
particularly on Palestinians, and other Arab Socialists. Focus on
Egypt.
1973-1977 the KGB is disappointed and Arabs are frustrated, but
Saudi-sponsored
Islamism provides an alternative political ideology for promoting
anti-American and pro-Russian sentiments. Focus on Iraq.
1978-1982 the KGB puts great hopes on the “Islamic revolution” of
Iran, and its
expansion to Arab countries, while exporting communism into
Afghanistan.
Focus on Iran. End of Andropov’s era (1967-1982) in the KGB.
1983-1987 the KGB is disappointed, but accommodated by the dominance
of Islamism
over orthodox Communism in Iran. Focus on Syria and Afghanistan. End
of
GRU chief Pyotr Ivashutin’s era (1963-1987).
1988-1992 the KGB withdraws its “active measures” inside the Soviet
borders, and
concentrates in provoking “ethnic conflicts” to divide and rule
separatists in the Caucasus and elsewhere in the disintegrating
empire.
The KGB is split (1991), and the GRU has chiefs with no intelligence
background (1987-1991) but establishes huge post-Soviet military
bases
in Karabakh, Abkhazia, and Transdnestria.
1993-1997 the KGB (FSB and SVR) re-establishes communist power in
former Soviet
Republics (except the Baltic countries) but fails to do it in
Chechnya.
Afghanistan remains divided as a new group of provocateurs, the
Taliban,
emerges to challenge the freedom fighters. The GRU under Fyodor
Ladygin
(1992-1997), has more resources at its disposal than the SVR under
Primakov (1991-1996).
Through these phases, Russian secret services gained a tight hold on
international terrorism, and specially on Islamism. It was nothing
new. During the 1920s, Soviet intelligence had succeeded in
thoroughly infiltrating fiercely anti-Soviet monarchist emigrant
organizations. Furthermore, “dozens of mythical organizations came
into being. One of these, the `Trust’, has become well known in both
Western and Soviet writings. For many years the Soviet leaders
claimed to have cunningly infiltrated a monarchist resistance
organization, but in the 1970s they admitted that they themselves had
created it. … Similar ones attacked… the church hierarchy of every
denomination; and `nationalists’ inside and outside the country, with
a `line’ of provocation covering each political tendency within each
major ethnic subdivision – Ukrainians, Cossacks, Armenians,
Georgians, Central Asians. Fragmentary information on at least two
dozen `lines’ has become known in the West through the years.”
(Deriabin & Bagley, p. 262 and 263)
Unfortunately, “Soviet provocation… remains little understood in the
West. People safe in a democratic system may find it difficult to
conceive that rulers would systematically use such hostile techniques
against their own subjects.” (Deriabin & Bagley, p. 252)
Back in the 1920s, anti-Soviet emigrants were compromised in front of
western governments to reduce their credibility, and they were used
in domestic propaganda to stage sabotage actions, to scare the
populace, and to provoke dissidents into revealing themselves. This
excellent experience was certainly in the minds of post-Andropov and
post-Ivashutin intelligence officers, who “may in fact have launched
a new golden era of provocation. … A blatant example was the work of
the far-right anti-Semitic organization called Pamyat (Memory).”
(Deriabin & Bagley, p. 251 and 261)
For the development of Soviet Islamism, the years 1988-1992 were
crucial. The KGB fought for its very existence, and the GRU too was
called to fight internal enemies within Soviet borders, instead of
its traditional foreign military intelligence work. Although the GRU
had fewer agents abroad than the KGB (in relation 7 to 10), it was
claimed to possess more financial resources by the mid-1980s.
(Kuzichkin, p. 274) Where was the money spent when the “Cold War” was
declared ended, traditional military intelligence lost motivation,
and left-wing terrorist organizations of the 1970s vanished from
sight? Obviously, GRU resources were concentrated to activities
within Soviet borders, to arm and train provocateurs. It is known,
that special forces were called from Afghanistan to crush Crimean
Tatar demonstrations in Moscow, in July 1987. They appeared soon in
the bloody incidents of Tbilisi (1989) and Baku (1990), and in Baltic
capitals (1991).
GRU’s Afghan experience was, how to manipulate Islamists and to make
Communists (of the Khalq faction) to grow beards and join their
declared enemies. This “Khalq strategy” provided a successful
alternative to the more orthodox “Parcham strategy” that relied on
ideologically less unholy alliances. When Soviet property was
privatized, the GRU naturally made money out of sale of air craft and
arms.
As Finnish researcher Anssi Kullberg has recently pointed out in his
well documented master’s thesis on Russian geopolitics, the Islamic
Renaissance Party was founded in Astrakhan, in June 1990, under KGB
surveillance, to argue for a Soviet and global Islam against
separatist movements among Muslim nations.
The Islamic Party of Azerbaijan was founded in 1991 by a philologist,
“a typical representative of the post-Soviet lumpen-intelligentsia”,
who was both anti-Turkic and anti-Semitic. Its members organized the
burning of an Israeli flag and training of “Islamic brigades”. The
party fought an international Masonic (!) conspiracy to spread the
American model of civilization, until its leadership was arrested in
1996, and accused of spying for Iran. (Igor Rotar: Islamic
Fundamentalism in Azerbaijan – Myth or Reality? Prism 8/2000)
Soviet sponsorship for Islamism has been exposed by a Chechen
nationalist leader, Ahmad Zakayev, in a revealing booklet on
“Wahhabism – Kremlin’s drugs against national liberation
organizations”. (Dziennik Polski 30.9.2001)
Finnish Polish researcher Zofia Grodzinska-Klemetti, who visited
Chechnya during and between the war years, has also stressed how both
Russian and Saudi intelligence were regarded by Chechens as parallel
forces undermining the peace and liberty of Chechen society. She
noticed in her lecture in Helsinki on October 23rd, 2001, that
anti-Semitic propaganda was always in Russian language, and that God
was always addressed in Arabic, as Allah, instead of using more
popular appellations in local languages. It has been very typical for
western Islamists to insist on the use of God’s Arabic name.
Obviously, anti-Semitism did not emerge from Caucasian or Russian
Turkic (Tatar) cultures, but was imported in the name of
Arab-centered Islam.
When the Soviet colonies had nevertheless declared independence in
1991, militant Muslims like the Chechen Basayev brothers, and some of
Hikmatyar’s “Afghan Arabs”, were invited by the GRU to join an
“Islamic cause” on behalf of Abkhazia against Georgia. Although the
war of 1992-1993 was depicted as a war of independence for the
traditionally Muslim Abkhazians, the Basayevs and other Muslim
volunteers soon found out, that this was far from the truth. The
so-called Abkhazians were old-time Communists who refused to accept
democratic changes. Instead of gaining more autonomy, Abkhazia – just
like Karabakh and Transdnestria – became practically operated by
Russian secret services, and engaged in international arms trade and
training of terrorists.
According to American Turkish researcher Ali M. Koknar, Shamil
Basayev went through military training in Afghanistan from April
until July 1994; Indian researcher Vinod Anand dates his visit from
March to May 1994 – anyway before the Taliban emerged. His host must
then still have been Hikmatyar, or one of his Soviet-trained
subordinates. There has never been evidence of any contacts between
the Chechen leadership and the Taliban, except for a private mission
of the former Chechen vice president in early 2000, when Russia had
already invaded Chechnya for the second time.
The Chechen Republic of Ichkeria had declared independence in 1991,
and for the first three years, Russia tried a variety of tricks to
overpower it. What had succeeded by 1993 in Georgia, Tajikistan, and
Azerbaijan, failed to bring results in Chechnya. In the end, Russia
started two full-scale invasions against this tiny Caucasian nation.
Very few Islamists have shown any sympathy for their fellow Muslims.
Both Iran and Iraq have applauded Russia’s invasions. Although Russia
has blamed Muslim terrorists (“Afghan Arabs”) for the tough Chechen
resistance, more Ukrainian or ethnic Russian (!) volunteers have been
sighted among Chechen freedom-fighters than Arabs or Afghans.
There are tactical similarities between Chechnya and Afghanistan.
Equally sinister forces operated in both countries. Provocateurs were
used by Russian secret services to destabilize governments, and the
world media was largely kept disinformed about what was going on. At
some point, while Afghans were accused for fighting in Chechnya,
Chechens were accused for fighting in Afghanistan. Such astonishingly
illogical accusations were uncritically transmitted by Western media.
Few journalists bothered to ask, why these “mercenaries” remained
invisible, immortal (no bodies found on battle grounds), and
impossible to be ever caught alive (unless Russia had its
prisoners-of-war executed before they could be interrogated), or what
sense would it make to have such a bold “students’ exchange” between
two countries without a common border or even a common neighbour. The
logistic risks alone would certainly discourage such practices.
Beside this, the origins of such inconsistent claims could be traced
quite easily. The myth of Chechens in Afghanistan was invented by the
Times of India in December 1999, concerning at first only refugees,
women and children. By April 2000, there appeared in The Indian
Express and The Hindustan Times articles, distributed in the internet
by well-known disinformation agents, stories about Arab, Pakistani
and Afghan militants, who allegedly had been to Chechnya in August
1999, but returned to fight in Kyrgyzstan before retiring to
Afghanistan. (Vinod Anand: Export of Holy Terror to Chechnya From
Pakistan and Afghanistan, Strategic Analysis 24.3/2000) Indian
newspapers have been always useful for launching Russian
disinformation.
In April 2000, the alleged Afghans in Chechnya and Chechen refugees
in Afghanistan were suddenly turned into Chechen fighters in
Afghanistan, by the Russian media. (Gazeta.ru 26.4.2000) When a
Russian TV crew claimed on May 22nd, 2000, that Masud had admitted
the existence of “not yet many” Chechens in Afghanistan, Itar-TASS
news agency reported “dozens of Chechens” sighted in Afghanistan,
which Reuters and BBC inflated into “thousands of Chechens”. So, a
myth was born. Although Kazakstani Khabar TV searched 3260 prisoners
in Afghanistan to find a Chechen, the only candidate turned out to be
an Azerbaijani. (BBC 4.1.2002) A Russian newspaper reporter managed
to meet a Circassian, who must have worked hard to explain his
American interrogators the differences of Caucasian nationalities.
(MN 6.-12.2.2002) There were more Westerners among al-Qayda
prisoners.
Mysteriously, none of these Chechens could ever be interviewed –
unlike two captured Chinese Uyghurs, who were presented in probably
every respectable Western newspaper.
() This, of course, pleased
China, but provided Russia little evidence to substantiate its own
myths on terrorism.
It has been alleged that most al-Qayda militants in Afghanistan were
of Saudi Arabian or Egyptian origin, but passports could be stolen or
forged. Records captured in Kabul, include mostly Yemeni names,
followed by Algerians, and individual Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinian,
Kuwaiti, and Tunisians. (Jane’s Defence Weekly 30.1.2002) Al-Qayda’s
third man, “Abu Zubaydah”, was first declared a Saudi Arabian of
Palestinian origin, but then recognized as an Iraqi activist of the
Arab Socialist Baath party. (NYT 14.2.2002; Der Spiegel 8/18.2.2002)
Although they are Arabs all the same, identities could provide clues
about political backgrounds.
Chechens have been accused for various mischief in Russia. Some years
ago, there were stories about toxic material hidden in Moscow parks
by Chechen terrorists. Now we know that the Soviet Army had dumped
chemical armament into a Moscow park 30 years earlier. (TOL
12.9.2001) All traces seem to lead back to the “Third Rome” and its
“praetorians”, the Russian military intelligence, GRU. According to
the Russian president himself, in his speech at the “Aquarium” on
November 5th, 2001, as many as 421 GRU officers had perished in
Chechnya during two years of war, and the GRU continues to have a
role in Russian foreign affairs! (NIS Observed 28.11.2001)
What role?!
Reference literature
Andrew, Christopher & Mitrokhin, Vasili: The Sword and the Shield –
The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (USA 1999)
Arney, George: Afghanistan (London 1990)
Barron, John: KGB – The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents (New York
1974)
Bodansky, Yossef: Bin Laden – The Man Who Declared War on America
(Rocklin 1999)
Bradsher, Henry S.: Afghanistan and the Soviet Union (Durham 1985)
Cooley, John K.: Unholy Wars – Afghanistan, America and International
Terrorism (Padstow 1999)
Deriabin, Peter & Bagley, T. H.: KGB – Masters of the Soviet Union
(New York 1990)
Goodwin, Jan: Price of Honour (London 1995)
Klass, Rosanne (ed.): Afghanistan – The Great Game Revisited (Lanham
1987)
Kuzichkin, Vladimir: Inside the KGB – Myth and Reality (Frome 1990)
Leitzinger, Antero (ed.): Caucasus and the Unholy Alliance (Vantaa
1997)
Livingston, Neil C. & Halevy, David: Inside the PLO (USA 1990)
Lunev, Stanislav: Through the eyes of the Enemy (Washington 1998)
Reissner, Johannes: Ideologie und Politik der Muslimbrüder Syriens
(Islamkundliche Untersuchungen 55, Berlin 1955)
Seale, Patrick: Abu Nidal – Der Händler des Todes (Gütersloh 1992)
Segaller, Stephan: Invisible Armies (Worcester 1986)
Sivan, Emmanuel: Radical Islam, Modern Theology and Modern Politics
(Binghamton 1985)
Taheri, Amir: Holy Terror (Bethesda 1987)
I was, unfortunately, unable to find the interesting accounts on
Russian secret services by Aleksandr Litvinenko (“The FSB Blows Up
Russia”, or “An Attack on Russia”, 2002), Vasili Mitrokhin (2002),
Vladimir Sakharov & Umberto Tosi (“High Treason”, 1980), Arkady
Shevchenko (“Breaking with Moscow”, 1985), Vladimir Solovyov & Elena
Klepikova (“Behind the High Kremlin Walls”, 1986), I. G. Starinov
(“Over the Abyss”, 1995), Claude Sterling (“Terrorism in the Soviet
Connection”, 1984), and Viktor Suvorov (“Aquarium”, 1985, or “Inside
the Aquarium”, 1986). I would also suggest the reader Ronald
Kessler’s “The Richest Man of the World – Adnan Khashoggi” (1986).
Abbreviations for media
BBC British Broadcasting Company
DN Dagens Nyheter (Swedish daily)
IHT International Herald Tribune
IPS International Press Service
LAT Los Angeles Times
MN Moscow News
NZZ Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Swiss daily)
RFE/RL Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
TN Turkistan Newsletter
TOL Transitions Online
WP Washington Post
WT Washington Times
Index of persons
Sometimes combined Arab names appear in English separated (specially
Abdul-), or with slightly different spelling because of differences
in pronunciation. I have thus retained Mohammed instead of proper
Muhammad for Persian names. Some of these variations are listed below
[in parentheses]. The Saudi use of “Bin” instead of “ibn” (son)
actually makes the patronymic a surname – for example, Ladin was not
the father of Usama, but his great-grandfather.
Abdulmalik, Anwar Lebanese writer [Abdelmalek]
Abdurrahman, Turan “Mullah Borjan”, Taliban officer
“Abu Zubaydah” Iraqi terrorist
Ahmad, Khabir Afghan researcher
Akbar, Muhammad Taliban officer
Aliyev, Heydar KGB officer, President of Azerbaijan 1993-
Allix, Stéphane French researcher
Amin, Hafizullah President of Afghanistan 1979
Anand, Vinod Indian researcher
Andropov, Yuri KGB chief 1967-1982, Soviet leader 1982-1984
Arafat, Yasser Palestinian leader
Atta, Muhammad Egyptian terrorist
Azzam, Abdullah Palestinian writer
Babar, Nasrullah Interior Minister of Pakistan
Basayev, Shamil Chechen officer, brother of Shirvani Basayev
Bearden, Milton CIA officer
Begenzhev, Gurbanduri Defence Minister of Turkmenistan
Beheshti, Mohammed Ayatollah, Iranian leader 1981
Ben Bella, Ahmad President of Algeria 1962-1965
Bhutto, Benazir Prime Minister of Pakistan 1988-1990 and 1993-1996
Bhutto, Murtaza Pakistani left-wing politician, brother of Benazir
Bhutto
Bin Baz, Abdulaziz Saudi Mufti
Bin Ladin, Usamah Saudi terrorist [Osama bin Laden]
Bodansky, Yossef American researcher
Brezhnev, Leonid Soviet leader 1964-1982
Brutents, Karen KGB officer
But, Viktor KGB officer [Victor Bout]
Chamran, Mustafa Ali Defence Minister of Iran
“Che Guevara” Cuban terrorist
Chernomyrdin, Viktor Prime Minister of Russia 1993-1998
Clinton, Bill President of the USA 1993-2001
Dawalibi, Muhammad Maruf ad- Prime Minister of Syria 1951 and
1961-1962
Dostum, Abdurrashid Afghan officer
Faysal King of Saudi Arabia 1964-1975
Gerecht, Reuel Marc CIA officer
Gharazi, Mohammed Oil Minister of Iran
Ghotbzadeh, Sadegh Foreign Minister of Iran 1979-1980
Gilani, Muhammad Taliban officer
Gore, Al Vice President of the USA 1993-2001
Grodzinska-Klemetti, Zofia Finnish Polish researcher
Habash, George Palestinian terrorist
Haddad, Wadi Palestinian terrorist
“Hagop Hagopian” Iraqi terrorist
Hawatmeh, Nayef Palestinian terrorist
Hikmatyar, Gulbuddin Prime Minister of Afghanistan 1993-1994 and 1996
[Hekmatyar]
Islam, Hussein Shaikh al- Lebanese terrorist
Ivashutin, Pyotr GRU chief 1963-1987
Kalugin, Oleg KGB officer
Karmal, Babrak President of Afghanistan 1979-1986
Khalid King of Saudi Arabia 1975-1982
Khan, Azmat Hayat Pakistani researcher
Khomeini, Ruhollah Ayatollah, Iranian leader 1979-1989
Kikot, V. KGB officer
Koknar, Ali M. American Turkish researcher
Kullberg, Anssi Finnish researcher
Ladygin, Fedor GRU chief 1992-1997
Lebed, Aleksandr Russian officer
Litvinenko, Aleksandr FSB officer
Lurye, Oleg Russian reporter
Mackenzie, Richard CNN reporter
Masud, Ahmadshah Defence Minister of Afghanistan [Ahmed Shah Massoud]
Mitrokhin, Vasili KGB officer
Moti, Abdulkarim Moroccan writer [Mot’ee]
Najibullah President of Afghanistan 1987-1992
Nazarov, Muhammad KNB chief
Niyazov, Saparmurad President of Turkmenistan
Öcalan, Abdullah Turkish terrorist
Omar Mullah, Taliban leader
Pipes, Daniel American researcher
Primakov, Yevgeni SVR chief, Prime Minister of Russia 1998-1999
Qutb, Said Egyptian terrorist
Rabbani, Burhanuddin President of Afghanistan 1992-2001
Rabinovich, Vadim Ukrainian businessman
Reyymov, Khosse Turkmen officer
Rotar, Igor Russian researcher
Sadat, Anwar President of Egypt 1970-1981
Saddam Hussein President of Iraq 1979-
Sawar, Shah Taliban officer
Shahin, Jérôme Lebanese writer
Talbott, Strobe American left-wing politician
Tanai, Shahnawaz Defence Minister of Afghanistan
Taraki, Nurmuhammad President of Afghanistan 1978-1979
Topol, Eduard American Russian writer
Tsvigun, Semyon KGB officer
Turki Prince, Saudi intelligence chief 1977-2001
Yassine, Abdussalam Moroccan writer
Yazdi, Ibrahim Foreign Minister of Iran?
Yeltsin, Boris President of Russia 1991-1999
Zakayev, Ahmad Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya
Zavgayev, Doku Russian Chechen politician
Zawahiri, Ayman az- Egyptian terrorist
The article was originally written in March 2002.
Antero Leitzinger is a political historian and a researcher for the
Finnish Directorate of Immigration. He wrote several books on Turkey,
the Middle East and the Caucasus.
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