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Terror's KGB Roots
Wall Street Journal ^ | November 23, 2007 | BORIS VOLODARSKY

Posted on 11/24/2007 9:48:51 PM PST by Ooh-Ah

A year ago today, my friend Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital, ...the British ...Service concluded, was planted on him by Russian secret agents. In its way, his murder was an act of state-sponsored terrorism.

This is nothing new for Russia. The KGB has long used terrorist tactics and worked closely with organizations like Yasser Arafat's PLO. ... in July 2005, Sasha wrote in a confidential report prepared for a special commission of the Italian Parliament investigating KGB activities in Italy that, "Until recently the KGB had been in charge of all international terrorism." The manner of his death suggests that Russia today, under the leadership of former KGB lieutenant colonel Vladimir Putin, is up to its old tricks.

... Soviet satellites did their share. During the late 1960s Arafat had also been courted by the Cairo station chief of the Romanian foreign intelligence service (DIE), Constantin Munteanu, who brought him to Bucharest. Arafat and Nicolai Ceausescu became good friends. Late in 1972 Romanian intelligence formed an alliance with the PLO, according to former KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky, who said the Romanians "suppl[ied] it with blank passports, electronic surveillance equipment, and weapons for its operations." Ceausescu told acting head of the DIE (and future defector) Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa: "Moscow is helping the PLO build up its muscles. I am feeding its brains." According to Mr. Pacepa's 1987 book, "Red Horizons": "Arafat and his KGB handlers were preparing a PLO commando team headed by Arafat's top deputy, Abu Jihad, to take American diplomats hostage in Khartoum, Sudan."

According to various sources, Ilyich Ramíres Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, the most notorious terrorist in the 1970s and early 1980s, was among those who attended Soviet and Cuban training camps. He lived for a time in East Germany.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: arafat; kgb; plo; russia; sovietunion; terrorism

1 posted on 11/24/2007 9:48:52 PM PST by Ooh-Ah
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To: Ooh-Ah

I’ll never forget the hypodermic given in the neck of a grieving mother when the Russians couldn’t explain the loss of all the crew of the Kursk submarine a few years ago. They did it on TV, during a live presser because the mother was distraught...calling out Putin as incompetent!


2 posted on 11/24/2007 10:08:50 PM PST by Wolverine (A Concerned Citizen)
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To: Ooh-Ah

I wish people would not post exerted articles that cannot be viewed without a paid registration.


3 posted on 11/24/2007 10:31:36 PM PST by Ronin (Bushed out!!! Another tragic victim of BDS.)
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To: Ooh-Ah

read the article here http://cgi.stanford.edu/group/wais/cgi-bin/index.php?p=12689


4 posted on 11/24/2007 10:33:02 PM PST by AdmSmith
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To: Ooh-Ah

remember when glasnost and perestroika were the media’s favorite buzzwords?


5 posted on 11/24/2007 10:42:40 PM PST by the invisib1e hand
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To: Ronin

Ya, I hate reading the lead in just to go nowhere...


6 posted on 11/24/2007 10:46:09 PM PST by DB
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To: Ooh-Ah
"According to various sources ...Carlos the Jackal, was among those who attended Soviet and Cuban training camps.

I'm aware of you Carlos the Jackal is (was), but who are the "various sources?"

7 posted on 11/24/2007 11:03:32 PM PST by LjubivojeRadosavljevic
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To: Ooh-Ah
August 12, 2000
 
The picture that has emerged of Putin during the Kursk crisis is of a leader profoundly imbued with the political culture that has marked centuries of Russian history: the needs of the state always come first; individual concerns come a distant second. When forced by events--an election campaign or a televised tragedy--Putin will don a human face and show concern for the ordinary people. But left to himself, he is far happier in the embrace of his great love--the Russian state.
 
 
8 posted on 11/24/2007 11:23:20 PM PST by Wolverine (A Concerned Citizen)
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To: Ooh-Ah

Sadly, the Russian model has been immitated also in South Western Europe and Northern Africa.

IMHO terrorist groups are always linked in some or other way to Secret Services. They cannot survive without them. The case of Pakistan-Taliban-Al Qaeda is paradigmatic.


9 posted on 11/25/2007 1:43:46 AM PST by J Aguilar (Veritas vos liberabit)
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To: J Aguilar

“paradigmatic”

Alllll-RIGHT!


10 posted on 11/25/2007 4:31:43 AM PST by RoadTest ("The Lord bringeth the council of the heathen to naught" - Psalm 33, verse 10)
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To: DAVEY CROCKETT; LibertyRocks

Ping.


11 posted on 11/25/2007 5:01:02 AM PST by nw_arizona_granny (This is "Be an Angel Day", do something nice for someone today.)
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To: J Aguilar; All
If you want to know more about the Soviet arming, training, and financing terror groups, read my bible on terrorism--written in the early 80's!:

Claire Sterling's The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism

Claire Sterling's amazing work is still relevant today to understanding a major part of the terrorism we face today.

12 posted on 11/25/2007 8:55:14 AM PST by Ooh-Ah
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To: Ooh-Ah

Pacepa, Golytsin and so on. Just anti-russian propaganda. Who killed Litvinenko wasn’t proved in court so it is all gossips nothing more.


13 posted on 11/26/2007 3:09:30 AM PST by RusIvan (ABM can be used to fend off the weakered by first strike reciprocal answer.)
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