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05/12/2003 | Ìóäæàãàä³í
http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/international.cfm?id=538552003
Sun 11 May 2003
Russia funding resurgent Taliban
by Ian Mather
RUSSIA is funding the Taliban's guerrilla war against the American-backed government of Afghanistan, leaders of the fundamentalist group have claimed.
In a move that carries echoes of attempts by the United States to undermine Soviet forces during their occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Russian intelligence is now providing covert backing to a resurgent Taliban, senior figures in the extreme Islamic movement have alleged.
The alarming claim will prove acutely embarrassing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been trying to rebuild relations with the US in the wake of the acrimonious split between the two countries over Iraq.
Engineer Hamidullah, the Taliban's former deputy chief of finance, says the Taliban now receive as much funding as they did when Osama bin Laden bank-rolled them before September 11.
"There are some countries that are against the policies of the US and the United Nations, and they support the guerrillas. The most important role belongs to Russia, Iran and Pakistan," he said.
In the 1980s, the CIA's funding of the Afghan Mujahedin on a massive scale wore down the Russians and eventually forced them to leave. The backing, both financial and military, was never admitted by the US.
According to Taliban sources in neighbouring Pakistan and Afghan intelligence sources, the group has a new hierarchy of leaders orchestrating opposition to the US-sponsored Afghan government of Hamed Karzai from Afghanistan and Pashtun tribal areas of north-west Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the Taliban has been mounting increasingly brazen attacks in Afghanistan. Last month its forces seized two remote districts near the Pakistan border and held them for nearly a week.
New-found confidence among the Taliban has led some of its leaders to speak publicly for the first time since the launch of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom 18 months ago.
Abdul Salam - the former chief justice of the Taliban's Supreme Court - last week told the Christian Science Monitor newspaper that the Afghan people now want the Taliban back "because during the Taliban times, there was peace and security".
He was contemptuous of Karzai. Referring to the national council (loya jerga) that chose him, he pointed a finger to his head like a gun and said: "The last loya jirga was done by force. But if there was a real loya jirga, and the people who were appointed were good, then I would work with my head and feet and heart for my country."
Salam, who achieved notoriety in the days of Taliban rule by claiming that Afghanistan had the right to execute foreign aid workers who were trying to convert Afghans to Christianity, lives in his native Logar Province, near Kabul. He refuses to talk about his activities in the Taliban today, but admits that he maintains contact with the movement.
Commenting on the alleged backing of Russia, Pakistan and Iran, he said: "The Russians are not happy with the US presence here, and neither are Iran, Pakistan and even China."
Salam's interview followed a public claim by another Taliban leader, Mullah Dadullah, that the Taliban had regrouped under the leadership of Mullah Omar, their one-eyed spiritual leader, who is still being hunted by the Americans. Dadullah claimed personal credit for a number of the recent Taliban attacks on coalition forces, and said that the Taliban would fight until "Jews and Christians, all foreign crusaders" were expelled from Afghanistan.
He added that the Taliban were also receiving money from the Afghan people.
A third senior Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Hasan Rehmani, former governor of Kandahar, has also re-emerged to renew calls for a "holy war" against the Americans and their allies.
Speaking to a journalist over a satellite phone, something no Taliban leader would have dared to do previously for fear of being tracked by American satellites, he described Karzai as "an American clerk and a toy in the hands of the Northern Alliance", which dominates the present Afghan government.
Despite the massive technological superiority of their forces in Afghanistan and the millions of dollars offered as rewards, the Americans have not managed to catch or kill any of the Taliban's top leadership.
The fact that many of the names in the new leadership structure are well known from the former regime undermines last week's announcement by US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld that major combat operations in Afghanistan are at an end.
Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at New York University, said:
"They [the Taliban] are now organising for a new offensive and they are still getting some support from Pakistan. Even if Pakistan is not cooperating directly, it is not cooperating in efforts to end the support that is coming from Pakistani territory."
Shahzada Zulfikar, a Quetta-based political analyst, said Taliban commanders continue to receive support from Pakistan's powerful and secretive intelligence agencies, as they did openly during the time of the Taliban government.
"Pakistan ditched the Taliban due to American pressure, for a while, but now there are fears that their relationship might be restored."
While Pakistan still provides a safe haven for the anti-government Afghan fighters as it did when the Mujahedin were fighting the Russians, there is now a new twist to the Great Game. The Russians, it appears, are on the same side, not on the receiving end.
No one was available for comment at the Russian embassy in London last night.
CHAIN OF COMMAND
AT THE top of the Taliban's new military command structure is Mullah Beradar, a native of the home village of the infamous Mullah Omar.
Beradar has been hunted relentlessly by the Americans, and at various times has been reported injured or dead.
Under Mullah Beradar are Taliban commanders and religious leaders assigned to different territories. The most active region, from Nimroz Province to Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, and north to Urozgan, is under the joint control of Beradar's top three deputies.
The first, Akhtar Usmani, former Taliban corps commander in Kandahar, is also a close companion of Omar. Both men taught in the same madrassa (religious school). Omar is said to have named Usmani as his successor in case of his death after he went into hiding from the Americans in November 2001.
Second is Mullah Abdur Razzaq, a founding member of the Taliban, who rose to head of the customs department and then interior minister.
According to Ahmed Rashid's book Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia, Razzaq admitted having given the order to kill General Mohammed Najibullah, the pro-Soviet president, who was executed when the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996.
The third man, Mullah Dadullah, was military chief in Kunduz on the front lines against the Northern Alliance, and negotiated its surrender. In his former role he notoriously presided over public hangings from cranes.
Sun 11 May 2003
Russia funding resurgent Taliban
by Ian Mather
RUSSIA is funding the Taliban's guerrilla war against the American-backed government of Afghanistan, leaders of the fundamentalist group have claimed.
In a move that carries echoes of attempts by the United States to undermine Soviet forces during their occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Russian intelligence is now providing covert backing to a resurgent Taliban, senior figures in the extreme Islamic movement have alleged.
The alarming claim will prove acutely embarrassing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been trying to rebuild relations with the US in the wake of the acrimonious split between the two countries over Iraq.
Engineer Hamidullah, the Taliban's former deputy chief of finance, says the Taliban now receive as much funding as they did when Osama bin Laden bank-rolled them before September 11.
"There are some countries that are against the policies of the US and the United Nations, and they support the guerrillas. The most important role belongs to Russia, Iran and Pakistan," he said.
In the 1980s, the CIA's funding of the Afghan Mujahedin on a massive scale wore down the Russians and eventually forced them to leave. The backing, both financial and military, was never admitted by the US.
According to Taliban sources in neighbouring Pakistan and Afghan intelligence sources, the group has a new hierarchy of leaders orchestrating opposition to the US-sponsored Afghan government of Hamed Karzai from Afghanistan and Pashtun tribal areas of north-west Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the Taliban has been mounting increasingly brazen attacks in Afghanistan. Last month its forces seized two remote districts near the Pakistan border and held them for nearly a week.
New-found confidence among the Taliban has led some of its leaders to speak publicly for the first time since the launch of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom 18 months ago.
Abdul Salam - the former chief justice of the Taliban's Supreme Court - last week told the Christian Science Monitor newspaper that the Afghan people now want the Taliban back "because during the Taliban times, there was peace and security".
He was contemptuous of Karzai. Referring to the national council (loya jerga) that chose him, he pointed a finger to his head like a gun and said: "The last loya jirga was done by force. But if there was a real loya jirga, and the people who were appointed were good, then I would work with my head and feet and heart for my country."
Salam, who achieved notoriety in the days of Taliban rule by claiming that Afghanistan had the right to execute foreign aid workers who were trying to convert Afghans to Christianity, lives in his native Logar Province, near Kabul. He refuses to talk about his activities in the Taliban today, but admits that he maintains contact with the movement.
Commenting on the alleged backing of Russia, Pakistan and Iran, he said: "The Russians are not happy with the US presence here, and neither are Iran, Pakistan and even China."
Salam's interview followed a public claim by another Taliban leader, Mullah Dadullah, that the Taliban had regrouped under the leadership of Mullah Omar, their one-eyed spiritual leader, who is still being hunted by the Americans. Dadullah claimed personal credit for a number of the recent Taliban attacks on coalition forces, and said that the Taliban would fight until "Jews and Christians, all foreign crusaders" were expelled from Afghanistan.
He added that the Taliban were also receiving money from the Afghan people.
A third senior Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Hasan Rehmani, former governor of Kandahar, has also re-emerged to renew calls for a "holy war" against the Americans and their allies.
Speaking to a journalist over a satellite phone, something no Taliban leader would have dared to do previously for fear of being tracked by American satellites, he described Karzai as "an American clerk and a toy in the hands of the Northern Alliance", which dominates the present Afghan government.
Despite the massive technological superiority of their forces in Afghanistan and the millions of dollars offered as rewards, the Americans have not managed to catch or kill any of the Taliban's top leadership.
The fact that many of the names in the new leadership structure are well known from the former regime undermines last week's announcement by US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld that major combat operations in Afghanistan are at an end.
Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan at New York University, said:
"They [the Taliban] are now organising for a new offensive and they are still getting some support from Pakistan. Even if Pakistan is not cooperating directly, it is not cooperating in efforts to end the support that is coming from Pakistani territory."
Shahzada Zulfikar, a Quetta-based political analyst, said Taliban commanders continue to receive support from Pakistan's powerful and secretive intelligence agencies, as they did openly during the time of the Taliban government.
"Pakistan ditched the Taliban due to American pressure, for a while, but now there are fears that their relationship might be restored."
While Pakistan still provides a safe haven for the anti-government Afghan fighters as it did when the Mujahedin were fighting the Russians, there is now a new twist to the Great Game. The Russians, it appears, are on the same side, not on the receiving end.
No one was available for comment at the Russian embassy in London last night.
CHAIN OF COMMAND
AT THE top of the Taliban's new military command structure is Mullah Beradar, a native of the home village of the infamous Mullah Omar.
Beradar has been hunted relentlessly by the Americans, and at various times has been reported injured or dead.
Under Mullah Beradar are Taliban commanders and religious leaders assigned to different territories. The most active region, from Nimroz Province to Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, and north to Urozgan, is under the joint control of Beradar's top three deputies.
The first, Akhtar Usmani, former Taliban corps commander in Kandahar, is also a close companion of Omar. Both men taught in the same madrassa (religious school). Omar is said to have named Usmani as his successor in case of his death after he went into hiding from the Americans in November 2001.
Second is Mullah Abdur Razzaq, a founding member of the Taliban, who rose to head of the customs department and then interior minister.
According to Ahmed Rashid's book Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia, Razzaq admitted having given the order to kill General Mohammed Najibullah, the pro-Soviet president, who was executed when the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996.
The third man, Mullah Dadullah, was military chief in Kunduz on the front lines against the Northern Alliance, and negotiated its surrender. In his former role he notoriously presided over public hangings from cranes.
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2003.05.12 | Ìóäæàãàä³í
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"Russia provided Saddam Hussein with the following: Intelligence on private conversations between British prime minister Tony Blair and the Italian prime minister; lists of assassins available for hits in the west; and agreements to share intelligence and help each other to obtain visas for intelligence agents."http://www.msnbc.com/news/900753.asp
The French and Russian connection
Hardball interviews the experts
April 14 — As the United States prepared to go to war with Iraq, two of the nations most opposed to that war were France and Russia. Recent discoveries in Iraq now indicate the relations between those two countries and Saddam Hussein’s regime were more extensive than publicly disclosed and were possibly in violation of U.N. sanctions against the Iraqi regime. Hardball with Chris Matthews talked to Ibrahim Marashi from the Center of Non-proliferation studies, and Frank Gaffney, of the Center for Security Policy for some of their expert opinions.
THE “LONDON TELEGRAPH” reports that top secret documents uncovered in the headquarters of Iraq’s intelligence service in Baghdad now show that Russia provided Saddam Hussein with the following: Intelligence on private conversations between British prime minister Tony Blair and the Italian prime minister; lists of assassins available for hits in the west; and agreements to share intelligence and help each other to obtain visas for intelligence agents.
In addition, the “San Francisco Chronicle” has uncovered Iraqi documents in a Baghdad office of the Iraqi secret police that indicate that at least five Iraqi agents completed a two-week course in surveillance and eavesdropping in Moscow.
Meanwhile, recent discoveries in Iraq also seem to implicate France for providing assistance to Saddam’s regime. “Newsweek” is reporting that U.S. forces in Iraq have found French-made missiles and a launcher that seemed to be produced within the past year. They also found radios used in military trucks, RPG night sights and a new Nissan pickup truck driven by an Iraqi officer.
Ibrahim Marashi is with the center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Frank Gaffney is the president of the Center for Security Policy.
MATTHEWS: What you know about the shipment of goods, of ordinance, of contraband to Iraq from Russia and from France?
IBRAHIM MARASHI, CENTER FOR NON-PROLIFERATION STUDIES: Well, in the Russian case, the cooperation between the Russian intelligence services or then the Soviet intelligence services and Iraq’s intelligence services dates back-up to-from 1973 to the present.
MATTHEWS: How do you know about the present? Why didn’t they stop at the end of the Cold War-the period when the whole world decided that Iraq was an outlaw nation? Why do you still have Soviet, or Russian intelligence now called—maybe it’s the same cast of characters helping Saddam Hussein spy on the west?
MARASHI: Russia still had interests in Iraq despite the end of the Cold War in terms of investments in its oil infrastructure, in terms of getting its debts paid back from Iraq, so that a Russian investment in Iraq still existed from the Cold War up to the present.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe, based upon what you heard, that the Iraqis benefited militarily in any way in the last three weeks from the Russian help?
MARASHI: In terms of military, probably intelligence— not necessarily in a military way.
MATTHEWS: Any way they endangered or cost the lives of American service people? Did the Russians cost the lives of any of our people by their actions on behalf of Iraq, based upon what you know of this?
MARASHI: It’s really hard to make a connection in the sense of how the Russian intelligence training help the Iraqi intelligence, in the sense that we saw Iraqi intelligence pretty much collapse during the course of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I think that probably if you’re going to make a connection, it’s French military hardware that was provided to the Iraqis could have caused the death of American
soldiers. If you remember in 1987, when the USS Stark was hit in the Persian Gulf, it was hit by a French missile launched from an French Mirage F-1.
MATTHEWS: Was that in violation of the sanctions since ’91?
MARASHI: No. That was in 1987, but proves the point that France was the primary supplier of military arms to Iraq.
MATTHEWS: And has France continued to arm Iraq through or right up until these hostilities or through these hostilities, do you know?
MARASHI: That information wasn’t publicly available, but it wouldn’t surprise me. French military industry had an interest in the Iraq in the past. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had violated Iraqi sanctions still to keep those connections alive.
MATTHEWS: The bottom line is that have the Russians, first of all, and secondly the French done to harm our military effort over there in the last three weeks?
MARASHI: Well, in terms of training the military, the techniques, and providing the hardware... if you add all those together in a lump sum, whatever aid they did provide is going to eventually hurt the American military that was deployed in Iraq.
MATTHEWS: Did they do so after the time it was clear we were going to fight in Iraq?
MARASHI: Well, looking at those documents, and I saw the “San Francisco Chronicle” documents from the Iraqi intelligence services and they looked authentic to me. So upon more careful examination, I think that’s going to be the link.
MATTHEWS: Frank Gaffney, what can you offer in terms of the facts of this case, do you have any evidence regarding France or Russia and their relations with Iraq?
FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: Well, I think you’ve laid out a pretty damming case already, Chris. It’s the tip of the iceberg, however. I’m quite sure that as these documents (and more where they came from) emerge, we’re going to find that the French and the Russians had ample reason not want to us to go into Iraq...for fearing that this kind of information would be disclosed.
MATTHEWS: What’s the rest of the iceberg?
GAFFNEY: I’m telling you that I suspect what you’re going to find elsewhere in Iraq, whether it’s with respect to this kind of cooperation between France, Russia, perhaps the Chinese, the Germans and others, is more evidence of involvement in conventional weapons and in intelligence. Probably in weapons of mass destruction. We don’t have the documents yet, Chris. All I’m saying is I suspect what you’re going to find is there’s a great deal more there.
MATTHEWS: What leads you to that?
GAFFNEY: Because partly this is the nature of the relationships; what we saw was not limited to these relatively small kinds of transfers and interactions. This has been going on for decades, as my colleague has pointed out. And what I’m confident you’re going to see is the reason that we were finding so much resistance on the part of the French and the Russians and so on, has been there’s more there they don’t want to have come out. It’s that clear.
MATTHEWS: How do you identify that particular motive? I mean, there are a lot of other motives, the people of Germany, the people of France have opposed our operation in Iraq. There’s lots of other reasons. Why do you believe that that is the reason that stopped them from helping us?
GAFFNEY: I don’t think that’s the only reason. I think that there are commercial reasons. I think that there were some reasons, as you say, on the part of the sentiments of the peoples in these countries.
But let’s face it, those sentiments, the last of those, the sentiments about the people of these countries have got to have shifted as they’ve seen now the joy of the people in Iraq at being liberated from...
MATTHEWS: I would hope so. I agree with you completely on that point. It’s got to move some hearts.
2003.05.12 | Patriot
U svij chas i Taliban i Irak USA funduvaly
to chmu b zaraz c'opho ne zrobyty MOskvi?