To The Qaeda:Ex Russian Agent, Vice Bin Laden Trained From Kgb

Yahoo Italy ^ | 7-16-2005 | AGI/AFP

[JudgemAll]

So what. We helped create the Taliban during the Russian's Afghan adventure.

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that's a lie. BinLaden and Talebans were extremely antiUS and antiIsrael, and received only Saudi help and SovietWeapons through Pakies and China, not US.

[JudgemAll]

We helped create Saddam too.

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Saddam's ascent to power has nothing to do with the US. Saddam came in power thanks to KGB. Later on he killed communists and fired KGB agents to run his own gestapo, to the protest of the Kremlin.

When Iran dropped the Shah, the Soviets supported Iran to convert it and to punish Saddam helped it attack Irak. The US delivered some arms to Saddam during the war to oppose the relative more "Soviet side" in Iran for pragmatics. However 90% of Saddam's arms were Soviets.

[jb6]

Centre for Research on Globalisation

[ home ] [ print version ]

According to this 1998 interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the CIA's intervention in Afghanistan preceded the 1979 Soviet invasion. This decision of the Carter Administration in 1979 to intervene and destabilise Afghanistan is the root cause of Afghanistan's destruction as a nation.

M.C.

The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan

Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
Posted at globalresearch.ca 15 October 2001

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Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

Translated from the French by Bill Blum

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The URL of this article is:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

Copyright, Le Nouvel Observateur and Bill Blum. For fair use only.

[jb6]

Read the interview.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Nice. But the reality is the problem started when one pro-Soviet group ousted another pro-Soviet group from power and the civil war began. Only after it was going good did any fundamentalists (or the US) get involved and our involvement was trivial until Reagan took office.

[inquest]

Al-Qaeda and the Russians are mortal enemies. To suggest the Russians trained any al-Qaeda is the height of stupidity.

No, the height of stupidity is to assume that just because two groups outwardly claim to be mortal enemies, they therefore would never collaborate behind the scenes. Not just stupidity, but breathtaking naivete.

[jb6]

So by your logic we might be sponsoring the Mullahs?

[inquest]

So by your logic we might be sponsoring the Mullahs?

If there weren't other factors to consider - such as that we're a more open society than Russia, we don't have the same KGB baggage that they do, and so far, none of our agents has come out and made such a serious accusation the way Litvinenko has - then I would consider it an insufficient counterargument to say that just because our governments claim to be enemies, that means there's no possible way they could be working behind the scenes. But given those factors that I mentioned, I consider it unlikely at this time.

Let me ask you this: Do you think that the various terrorist groups in Palestinian-controlled areas are as in opposition to each other as they make themselves out to be?

[jb6]

See, nothing to worry about. Wonder if he ever felt a touch of regret for his views? Considering he's a lefty, probably not for a second.:

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

[jb6]

Litvinenko is an islamic apologist who stated that the FSB was responsible for Beslan, not the islamics. He's typical of the Russian left.

Litvinenko on Beslan

Chechenpress, London (a chronic terrorist apologist site)

A. Litvinenko: "The identities of the terrorists prove 100% the participation of the FSB in the seizure of the school in Beslan"

In connection with the extremely intricate and incomprehensible situation with the personalities of the people who participated in the hostage-taking in Beslan, the correspondent of the "Chechenpress" agency turned to a specialist for an explanation. The questions are answered by former Lieutenant Colonel of the FSB, Aleksandr Litvinenko

[jb6]

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FSB scandal- alleged plot to kill Berezovskiy

Date: 18.11.1998
Domestic/International:
Relation:
Type of event:
Details: Another crime-corruption scandal heated up Tuesday, this time involving accusations that senior officials in the Federal Security Service (FSB) have been involved in a host of crimes, including a plot to kill Boris Berezovsky, the tycoon and executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States. A group of FSB officers--some wearing sunglasses and one even sporting a ski mask--held a press conference Tuesday (November 17) in Moscow, during which they accused Yevgeny Khokholkov, former chief of the FSB's anti-organized crime department, and his deputy Aleksandr Kamyshnikov, of ordering them late last year to murder Berezovsky. The FSB's anti-organized crime department has since been disbanded. Khokholkov is now a senior official with the State Tax Service, while Kamyshnikov is with the FSB's antiterrorist team. An investigation into the alleged assassination plot was launched by the Main Military Prosecutor's Office earlier this year after Aleksandr Litvinenko, who worked in the FSB's anti-organized crime section, informed Berezovsky and members of President Boris Yeltsin's administration about it. Back in 1994, Litvinenko, who was one of the participants in Tuesday's press conference, assisted Berezovsky in investigating who placed a bomb in the financier's car in an assassination attempt in which Berezovsky's driver was decapitated.

Litvinenko and his fellow FSB officers claimed yesterday both that ex-FSB chief Nikolai Kovalev tried to have the investigation squelched, and that they have been threatened by other FSB officials. They also claimed that they had been ordered to kidnap the brother of Umar Dzhabrailev, a well-known Moscow businessman who heads the Radisson Slavyanskaya hotel joint venture. Litvinenko said his motivation in speaking out was draw the attention of Vladimir Putin, the FSB's current head, on the need to clean the organization of officers who are using the agency not for "constitutional goals," but "for their private and mercantile goals, for the settling of scores with undesirable people" (Russian agencies, November 17; Moscow Times, November 18).

The charges laid out in the November 17 press conference repeated and added to accusations Berezovsky himself made in an open letter to Vladimir Putin, the current FSB chief. In the letter, which was published November 13 in "Kommersant daily," Berezovsky charged that FSB officials have been involved in "the commission of terrorist acts, murders, kidnappings and the extortion of large sums of money." He also suggested the alleged plot to kill him had a political component, claiming that antidemocratic forces in the FSB leadership are united with leftist parties and movements and remnants of the Soviet-era nomenklatura in seeking to "again enforce the old system of distribution and control over the people and over mass media and punishment of undesirables" (Kommersant daily, November 13). Berezovsky, who recently called for a ban on the Communist Party after it failed to condemn anti-Semitic comments by one of its members, said in his letter to Putin that he had sent his accusations to the Prosecutor General's Office, but that a possible investigation may have been squashed by one official in that office who is connected with "the most reactionary" elements of the Communist Party. These include Viktor Ilyukhin, head of the State Duma's security committee, and Albert Makashov, the communist deputy who made the now-infamous anti-Semitic remarks. Litvinenko claimed yesterday that after he refused to carry out the order to kill Berezovsky, he was threatened by a fellow FSB officer for having prevented the murder of "a Jew who has robbed half the country."

In response to Berezovsky's open letter, FSB Director Vladimir Putin released a statement yesterday in which he said his agency "will not participate in any political games, no matter how many attempts are made to draw us into them." Putin wrote that his service is fully cooperating with the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, which is continuing to investigate the alleged assassination plot. Putin admitted that the investigation had been briefly terminated earlier this year, and then re-opened. If the charges turn out to be false, Putin warned, the FSB's legal department will sue both the newspapers which have reported them and those "persons who have given false testimony" (Kommersant daily, November 18).

Some Russian media today raised questions about the accusations of Berezovsky and Litvinenko. In a front-page analysis, "Komsomolskaya pravda," citing unnamed FSB sources, suggested that Litvinenko himself had headed a renegade group of FSB officers which had been engaged in criminal activities. It also quoted an unnamed FSB official as questioning whether the task to kill Berezovsky would have been given to Litvinenko, a man known to be close to the tycoon. The newspaper, it should be noted, is controlled by Oneksimbank, one of Berezovsky's strongest opponents in political-financial dealings. "Nezavisimaya gazeta" and "Novye izvestia," both reportedly controlled by Berezovsky, gave the tycoon's charges and Tuesday's press conference much more respectful coverage. Meanwhile, Yuri Shchekochikhin, a member of the State Duma's security committee, wrote this week in "Novaya gazeta" that Berezovsky may have attacked the Prosecutor General's Office in his letter to Putin because it has been investigating "criminal cases which have a direct relationship to certain firms and banks under Berezovsky's jurisdiction" (Novaya gazeta, No. 45, November 16-22). Shchekochikhin, it should be noted, has frequently written articles in "Novaya gazeta" detailing alleged criminal activity by FSB officers, including Yevgeny Khokholkov, the man who allegedly ordered Berezovsky's murder.

"Vremya-MN" wrote today that the fact the accusations have gone public suggests either that an internal FSB power struggle has gone out of control, or that certain high-level FSB officials are using Litvinenko to create a scandal designed to get rid of rivals within the agency (Vremya-MN, November 18). One "Kommersant daily" editor told RTR television today that even if the scandal is part of a "political game" by Berezovsky, the fact that a group of FSB officers repeated the charges publicly means the charges are serious enough to warrant a full investigation (RTR, November 18).

A side-bar to the scandal: Last Thursday (November 12), the day before "Kommersant daily" published Berezovsky's open letter to Putin, the newspaper reported that a group of State Duma deputies had been told in Washington by Judge William Webster, former chief of the FBI and of the CIA, that Berezovsky had purchased property on the island of Antigua for US$72 million. The Duma recently passed a bill, sponsored by Viktor Ilyukhin, head of the chamber's security committee and a member of the Communist's radical wing, designed to crack down on money laundering. The Federation Council, the parliament's upper chamber, has not yet voted on the bill (Kommersant daily, November 12). Today, that newspaper quoted from a letter it said was written by Webster, in which he confirms having met with the Duma delegation, but denies passing on such information or having mentioned Berezovsky at all (Kommersant daily, November 18).
Sources: Jamestown

Keys:

Key	Look up
Crime-Corruption
Intelligence-Counter(FSB)

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References:

Persons

Ilyukhin Viktor Ivanovich

Makashov Albert Mikhaylovich

Berezovskiy Boris Abramovich

Kovalyov Nikolay Dmitriyevich

Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich

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[NUPI Home Page] [NUPI - Centre for Russian Studies]

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Comments on content: russia@nupi.no
Technical questions: russia.tech@nupi.no
11. august 2005 - 24.199.150.114

[jb6]

From a Washington Time report

In 2000 Litvinenko illegally left Russia after three criminal cases were opened against him. Litvinenko and his family live in Great Britain, where he received political asylum in May 2001. Litvinenko is considered to be one the closest friends of Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky,

[jb6]

Kovalev’s Biggest Battle

On 27 March 1998 Boris Berezovskiy, one of the richest men in Russia, the owner of a media empire, close confidant of the Yel'tsin family and the presumed source of many security leaks, requested a meeting with the FSB director Nikolay Kovalev. Berezovskiy explained to Kovalev that a week earlier he had been contacted by Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksandr Litvinenko from the FSB Directorate of Analysis and Suppression of the Activity of Criminal Organisations (URPO), who told him that several members of URPO planned to assassinate him. Berezovskiy had already been a target of an assassination attempt and treated the threat very seriously. Litvinenko and three of his FSB colleagues who confirmed his story had already reported it to Yevgeniy Savostyanov, deputy head of the Presidential Administration responsible for special services. When Kovalev called the four officers and ordered them to write a report they refused, saying that the conversation about killing the tycoon was "frivolous". The FSB began its own investigation and Kovalev suspended all the suspects until the end of the investigation. In May the FSB investigators concluded that the accusations against the URPO leadership were groundless and Kovalev reinstated them in May 1998.

Berezovskiy did not give up even after Kovalev’s dismissal on 25 July 1998. One of the richest and most influential Russian businessmen was preparing for another battle with the FSB and no one could stop him because of his contacts with the Yel'tsins. On 13 November Berezovskiy wrote an open letter to the new director of the FSB, Vladimir Putin, repeating the accusations. Four days later Lieutenant-Colonel Litvinenko and his colleagues repeated the accusation at a press conference and the next day, on a visit to Tbilisi in his capacity as CIS Executive Secretary, Berezovskiy announced that Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office and the FSB were criminal organisations. Boris Yel'tsin did not react, Vladimir Putin did. On 19 November 1998 in a TV interview, Putin denied Berezovskiy’s accusations, said that he had known Berezovskiy for many years and he respected him, but then added "Boris Abramovich: do your job. Boris Abramovich is the CIS Executive Secretary, isn’t he?" The next day, 20 November, Yel'tsin called Putin and demanded that Berezovskiy’s accusations were to be treated seriously and the case was to be taken by the General Prosecutor’s Office. Putin was also told to submit a report on the whole case by 20 December 1998. On 23 November Russia’s largest TV channel ORT, controlled by Berezovskiy, showed an interview with a group of serving FSB officers, who were willing to give their names and to describe how their department (URPO) planned to kidnap one of the brothers Dzhabrailov, Moscow-based Chechen businessmen. The officers claimed that there were no written orders but that Nikolay Kovalev knew about the operation. Kovalev sued Berezovskiy four days later.

Berezovskiy’s accusations looked like a political game for several reasons.

The URPO was set up on the basis of the Long Term Programs Directorate (UPP) which was in the past accused by unknown officials around Yel'tsin of being Lebed’s mini-KGB. The head of the UPP was then Colonel Khokholkov and the head of the URPO was Major-General Khokholkov.

The alleged order to kill Berezovskiy was given in December 1997. Why did it take Lieutenant-Colonel Litvinenko and his colleges so long to inform either Berezovskiy or anyone else who would take the case?

Has the officer in charge of one of the most efficient security substructures, URPO, asked for a progress report from Litvinenko?

How could Litvinenko know that Nikolay Kovalev knew about the assassination order if it was not given in writing or by Kovalev himself and in his presence?

Litvinenko already knew Berezovskiy, had worked for him and boasted about their friendship.

All four accusing officers moonlighted as Berezovskiy’s bodyguards.

The officers claiming that they were given orders to kill Berezovskiy spoke also at length about the seemingly non-related issue of the FSB’s unorthodox attempt to liberate two FSB officers kidnapped by the Chechens. The alleged attempt involved kidnapping Dzhabrailov, brother of a controversial Chechen Moscow-based businessman. The officers spoke about the operational details of the whole undertaking, expressing anxiety about the methods they were ordered to use. Putting aside the sudden moral qualms of the group, their willingness to talk about operations against any Chechens, especially about such a controversial figure as Dzhabrailov at a time when the Chechens were not popular is unusual, unless one remembers Boris Berezovskiy’s attempts to negotiate the release of several hostages in Chechnya. The FSB was against his involvement in any negotiations because his methods and money encouraged potential kidnappers and served his own interest.

Two of the accusers were about to be reprimanded for unrelated transgressions by the superiors they accused of plotting Berezovskiy’s murder.

In September 1995 Litvinenko was involved in an unusual case of a stolen garment sold by Marya Tikhonova, a daughter of Yel'tsin’s then chief of staff Sergey Filatov. The target of the investigation was not Tikhonova but Filatov.

Boris Berezovskiy was allowed by Yel'tsin and his entourage to continue his private vendetta after the first FSB investigation. In April 1998 Yel'tsin made him the Executive Secretary of the CIS. He was not fired when the second investigation ordered by Yel'tsin and supervised by Putin found no substance in Litvinenko’s accusations. After his dismissal from the FSB Litvinenko found work as an adviser of the CIS Executive Secretariat, where he was arrested in the spring of 1999 on unrelated charges. Litvinenko’s colleagues who supported his accusations were fired from the FSB and found jobs on Boris Berezovskiy’s staff. The URPO was disbanded and General Khokholkov was fired although Major-General Yuriy Bagrayev of the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office stated publicly that the statements made by Litvinenko and his colleges against their superiors were baseless. Khokholkov was offered a job at the State Tax Office. His directorate was closed down soon after his appointment and he was not offered another job.

Nikolay Kovalev won the court case against Berezovskiy in April 1999 but did not ask for any material compensation because he was "not convinced of the clean origin of Berezovskiy’s money". In September 1999, in an interview with the Italian daily Repubblica, Berezovskiy claimed that generals once responsible for Yel'tsin’s security, Barsukov and Korzhakov, commissioned a series of murders

[sergey1973]

I would neither totally dismiss, nor immediately believe this report. Surely FSB is a dark organization--reincarnation of KGB. However, at a time when al-Zawahiri was allegedly in Russia's Dagestan (1998), AlQaida with Taleban that Controlled much of Afganistan had been hostile to the interests of Russia, and they planned to foment Islamic Revolution in Central Asia which went directly against Russian Interests. Training Zawahiri would have meant training the dangerous enemy of both Russia and US.

Maybe FSB didn't know who Al Zawahiri was and maybe they wanted to use him for one of their missions. Or maybe Litvinenko simply tries to get more media attention. I can understand him--he runned for his life from his former colleagues at FSB, and he is a fierce opponent of Putin regime. I respect him for his opposition to Putinists, but he may be using exaggerations or distortions to get back at his enemies in Kremlin and FSB.

P.S. USSR KGB and other Communist Eastern European secret services trained and financed Arafat and his thugs.

Bin-Laden at one time was one of the beneficiaries of CIA and Pakistani intelligence when US was leading the effort to remove the Soviet occupying forces from Afghanistan. Unfortunately as the result of "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality of the "Cold War" era, a genie of Islamic fanaticism was unwittingly let out of the bottle and turned loose.

[Stellar Dendrite]

"No, but I do have many friends in the Special Operations community, and they would laugh at this nonsense."

You've dodged the question. You haven't interviewed ex-FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko yourself to confirm your initial assertion that it's a "bold faced lie". It isnt a matter of how many "friends" you have in the special ops.

Gary, your role here is very clear. You're providing disinformation. Your initial freepmail trying to shame me for posting this article and subsequent ping list including the known putin apologist Marmema proves this.

[Stellar Dendrite]

Boy Gary, you're working really hard to try and discredit this article. LOL..your agenda is clear.

[GarySpFc]

Boy Gary, you're working really hard to try and discredit this article. LOL..your agenda is clear.

My agenda is truth, and I detest those who will lie to gain a political advantage. The SpFc on the end of my handles stands for Special Forces, and I served on a Special Forces A-Team during the sixties. I am still a member of the Special Forces Association. It was my Special Forces buddies who helped supply and train the Mujahideen from 1979 to 1989 in their war against the Russians. Included in the Mujahideen was OBL. It was out of this group al-Qaeda and the Taliban came into existence.

In the last war in Afghanistan it was two hundred of my Special Forces buddies who lead the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Russians manned the tanks for the Northern Alliance against the the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Russians and al-Qaeda hate each other and are mortal enemies. The Chechens got their training as part of the Mujahideen during the eighties, and are now part of al-Qaeda. Why do you think the Russians and Chechens are fighting in Chechnya?

[GarySpFc]

Maybe FSB didn't know who Al Zawahiri was and maybe they wanted to use him for one of their missions.

Wasn't there a report posted on Free Republic that the Russians had arrested al-Zawahiri in Daginstain during this time frame, but let him go as they did not know who he was at the time? Maybe that was al-Zaquari, but the fact they arrested either one proves they were not working together.

[Stellar Dendrite]

Guys, this Gary guy is quite a "character". After I posted this article Gary FReepmailed me:

"You should be ashamed for posting this nonsense. Don't you have a conscience?"

Then I replied: "Buzz off". To which he replied:



Re: To The Qaeda:Ex Russian Agent, Vice Bin Laden Trained From Kgb
From GarySpFc | 08/11/2005 7:47:58 AM CDT replied

The SpFc on the end of my handles stands for Special Forces, and I am a former member, and still a member of the Special Forces Association. It was my Special Forces buddies who helped supply and train the Mujahideen from 1979 to 1989 in their war against the Russians. Included in the Mujahideen was OBL. It was out of this group al-Qaeda came into existence.

In the last war in Afganistain it was two hundred of my Special Forces buddies who lead the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Russians manned the tanks for the Northern Alliance against the the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Russians and al-Qaeda hate each other and are mortal enemies.

The Chechens got their training as part of the Mujahideen during the eighties, and are now part of al-Qaeda. Why do you think the Russians and Chechens are fighting in Chechnya?

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If you read the paragraphs in his freepmail above, they are identical to his reply here, except for the initial sentence. Talk about a propagandist with an agenda.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1461064/posts?page=57#57

[GarySpFc]

I don't for a second deny my post is almost identical to the e-mail I sent you. The truth does not change.