The International Forecaster editor Bob Chapman writes: The group that massacred 170 children and 130 adults in Beslan led by CIA operative Shamil Basayev, took their orders from abroad ... there is no question this is an extension of Anglo-American foreign policy to dismember Russia as we predicted 12 years ago. #msg-4194861
Joe Vialls offers a plethora of new facts pointing to the same conclusion reached by Chapman and myself. I do not agree with everything Vialls offers. However, beyond that which is questionable there exists enough evidence to condemn Bush and the elitists or initiates who pulled his strings in this tragic affair. #msg-4307815
A Chechnya made independent with Bush’s help may also be the prelude to the longer-term break-up of Russia herself: the CIA predicted that oil-rich Siberia might escape Moscow’s control in its report, Global Trends 2015, published in April.
-Am
Gaining control of Russian oil
John Laughland
11th October 2004
The fax-back service for pre-written newspaper articles must have been working overtime these last few weeks at Langley, Virginia. A flood of articles has appeared in the press attacking the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, especially in the wake of the Beslan massacre. They all have the same structure. Whenever you read the words, “Nothing can excuse the murder of children,” you know that a big “But” is looming. Such articles invariably go on to explain why the murder of children is indeed understandable, and the reason usually given is Russian authoritarianism, against which the Chechen rebellion is natural and legitimate.
During the reign of Chechen leader Djokar Dudaev, while Boris Yeltsin was president, and while the West was happily looting Russia, the Chechens were often described in the Western press as a bunch of bandits and Mafia gangsters. As recently as 2001, indeed, President Bush said that Vladimir Putin was a man he could trust – as if world leaders required or enjoyed such benediction from the world emperor. But those events are in the past, and Russia is now instead branded a dictatorship. Colin Powell gave an interview to Reuters on 14th September in which he berated Putin for rolling back democracy and instructed him to seek a political solution to the Chechen question, in whose cause schoolchildren had been shot in the back while trying to escape their captors. [ii] That the US administration has now formally turned against Russia, precisely at the moment when the terrorist threat against her is there for the whole world to see, both explains this sudden glut of articles by pro-US journalists and also poses the question: “Why?”
One of the articles, perhaps inadvertently, spilt the beans. The Chechen leader Ahmed Zakayev wrote in The Wall Street Journal on 29th September 2004 [iii] that
“The West has a clear choice. It can continue to support the KGB dictatorship of Mr. Putin, which sooner or later will turn against the West and side with its enemies through its strategic goal of undermining the "unipolar" world order and keeping oil prices high. Or it can change course and insist on resolving the Chechen conflict through negotiated settlement.” (my italics).
In other words, the “negotiated settlement” in Chechnya, which the US Secretary of Defence, Colin Powell, has instructed the Russian government to seek, is the way to prevent Russia from ever counter-balancing the United States in world affairs, and to get the oil price down.
Where is the connection? Chechnya borders Georgia, and Georgia, like Azerbaidjan, is on the fast track to join NATO. There are already hundreds of US troops in Georgia, training the local forces. They are there for two reasons: first, to protect the US-built Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline; secondly – and this follows from the first – to assist Georgia in recuperating her two secessionist territories, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It will not do to have Russia anywhere close to the pipeline, and she has troops in both these areas. Pushing Russia comprehensively out of the Caucasus, and humiliating her, requires victory for the Chechens. An independent Chechnya may also be the prelude to the longer-term break-up of Russia herself: the CIA predicted that oil-rich Siberia might escape Moscow’s control in its report, Global Trends 2015, published in April.
This imperative of getting the oil price down, and of establishing control over the sources and transport of hydrocarbons, and has become all the more urgent as the situation in Iraq deteriorates. Oddly enough, it was Mikhaïl Khodorkovsky, the now-imprisoned Russian oil billionaire, who first drew my attention to the true American war aims in Iraq, when Chris Sanders and I met him in September 2002.[iv] Khodorkovksy feared that if the US gained control of the Iraqi oilfields, it would pump out so much oil that the price would fall to $12 a barrel. This, he told me, would destroy the Russian oil industry and Russia herself. His worst fears have gone unfulfilled for one simple reason: the unexpected tenacity of the Iraqi resistance.
This is why US strategists are now looking to make up for the mistakes they have so spectacularly made in Iraq. It is this, and not any real change in the internal political situation in Russia, which explains the West’s turn against Putin: the West needs to gain control of Russian oil. The West’s failure in Iraq is as striking as its success in Eastern Europe. The former communist states of Europe have now been comprehensively colonised by the US and its European allies. The political penetration of them is now total, as became clear in February 2003, when the US was able to call on heads of state and government in every single East European member of the EU and NATO to produce an open letter supporting the impending Anglo-American attack on Iraq, at a time when the whole of the rest of the world was lining up against it. Even (perhaps particularly) the Bosnian Serbs, whose terrifying ‘nationalism’ – according to the New World Order fairy-tale version of events – is supposed to have set the Balkans alight in the 1990s, have shown no desire whatever to get rid of the American military bases implanted in their midst since then. The fact that the height of Slavic resistance to the command “Jump!” is to ask for permission to smoke another cigarette first was undoubtedly the reason why American strategists were notoriously convinced that colonising Iraq would be ‘a cakewalk’. Russia also presents the advantage of being the second or third largest producer of oil in the world (after Saudi Arabia and perhaps Iraq) and having the world’s biggest reserves.
Simultaneously, efforts are being redoubled to crank into action the various pipelines which are supposed to transport Caspian oil to Western markets. One of these is the Brody pipeline which runs between the Ukrainian town of that name and the Black Sea port of Odessa (a Russian city but also in Ukraine). The Brody pipeline was initially supposed to take US-controlled Caspian oil to Western markets, but it has instead been pumping Russia oil, something the Americans do not like.[v] So the New World Order strategists are determined to put their man in control of Ukraine, at the presidential election on 31st October. Huge influence, and presumably money, is being pumped in to ensure a victory for Victor Yushchenko. Paul Wolfowitz said in Warsaw on 5th October that Ukraine should join NATO;[vi] Mark Brzezinski and Richard Holbrooke have rattled their sabres over Ukraine,[vii] and Anders Aslund, the architect of Yelstin’s mass larceny, has eloquently outlined the West’s strategic interest in that country.[viii]
These national strategic interests are, as ever, supported by the private interests of the powerful people lobbying for this new anti-Putin policy. They include people like David Owen and Jacob Rothschild: the former is Yukos’ representative in Britain, the latter put up much of Khodorkovsky’s original money, and sits (together with Henry Kissinger) on the board of the Open Russia Foundation, a Yukos front.[ix] They also include Anders Aslund, one of the signatories of the AEI’s Open Letter, who works for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which is funded by Yukos.[x] Conoco Phillips – the strategic ally of Chevron, on whose board Condoleezza Rice sat for many years – has recently announced a “strategic alliance” with Lukoil, the second largest private oil company in the world,[xi] and Conoco Phillips is said to want a controlling stake in the Russian company.[xii] Before Khodorkovsky’s arrest, indeed, it was said that he wanted to sell Yukos to an American company.
Cheap oil is a matter of life and death for the US, and it is a matter of considerable personal importance to many powerful people. The maintenance of a US-dominated unipolar world, especially in monetary affairs, is also an absolute imperative. Anything which stands in the way of these imperatives must be crushed – and Russia stands in the way of both.
Examples of this genre have been: the Open Letter signed by one hundred politicians and intellectuals and published on the American Enterprise Institute web site. “An Open LetterTo the Heads of State and Government Of the European Union and NATO”, http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.21294/news_detail.asp
The signatories are: *Mr. Urban Ahlin, Member of Parliament, Sweden; The Honorable Giuliano Amato, Former Prime Minister, Italy; Dr. Uzi Arad, Institute for Policy and Strategy, Israel; Dr. Timothy Garton Ash, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, United Kingdom; Dr. Anders Aslund, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, United States; Dr. Ronald D. Asmus, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, United States; Mr. Rafael L. Bardaji, Strategic Studies Group, Spain; Prof. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Former Foreign Minister, Poland; Dr. Arnold Beichman, Hoover Institution, United States; Dr. Jeff Bergner, Former Staff Director, U.S. Senate, United States; The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Senator, United States Mr. Carl Bildt, Former Prime Minister, Sweden; Mr. Max Boot, The Council on Foreign Relations, United States; Ms. Ellen Bork, Project for the New American Century, United States; Mr. Pascal Bruckner, Writer, France; Mr. Mark Brzezinski, McGuire Woods LLP, United States; Mr. Reinhard Buetikofer, Chairman, Green Party, Germany; Dr. Janusz Bugajski, Center for Strategic and International Studies, United States; Sir Michael Butler, Former Permanent Representative to the European Community, United Kingdom; The Honorable Martin Butora, Former Ambassador, Slovakia; Mr. Daniele Capezzone, Italy; The Honorable Per Carlsen, Institute of International Affairs, Denmark; Ms. Gunilla Carlsson, Member of Parliament, Sweden; Dr. Ivo Daalder, Brookings Institution, United States; The Honorable Massimo D'Alema, Former Prime Minister, Italy; Mr. Pavol Demes, Former Foreign Minister, Slovakia; Dr. Larry Diamond, United States; His Excellency Philip Dimitrov, Former Prime Minister, Bulgaria; Mr. Thomas Donnelly, American Enterprise Institute, United States; Mr. Nicholas Eberstadt, American Enterprise Institute, United States; Mr. Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Former Foreign Minister, Denmark; Ms. Helga Flores Trejo, Heinrich Böll Foundation of North America, United States; Dr. Francis Fukuyama, United States; Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin, Aspen Institute Berlin, Germany; Prof. Bronislaw Geremek, Former Foreign Affairs Minister and Member of European Parliament, Poland; Dr. Carl Gershman, National Endowment for Democracy, United States; The Honorable Marc Ginsberg, United States; Mr. Andre Glucksmann, Writer, France; Dr. Phil Gordon, Brookings Institution, United States; The Honorable Karl-Theodor von und zu Guttenberg, Member of Parliament, Germany; The Honorable Istvan Gyarmati, Institute for Euro-Atlanticism and Democracy, Hungary; Mr. Pierre Hassner, Center for International Studies and Research, France; His Excellency Vaclav Havel, Former President, Czech Republic; The Honorable Richard C. Holbrooke, Former Ambassador to the United Nations, United States; The Honorable Toomas Ilves, Former Foreign Minister and Member of European Parliament, Estonia; Mr. Bruce Jackson, Project on Transitional Democracies, United States; Dr. Donald Kagan, Yale University, United States; Mr. Robert Kagan, United States; Mr. Jerzy Kozminski, Former Ambassador to the United States, Poland; Mr. Craig Kennedy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, United States; Ms. Glenys Kinnock, Member of European Parliament, United Kingdom; Dr. Bernard Kouchner, Former UN Special Envoy to Kosovo, France; Dr. Ivan Krastev, Center for Liberal Strategies, Bulgaria; Mr. William Kristol, Project for the New American Century, United States; The Honorable Girts Valdis Kristovskis, Former Minister of Defense, Latvia; Prof. Dr. Ludger Kuehnhardt, University of Bonn, Germany; The Honorable Mart Laar, Former Prime Minister, Estonia; The Honorable Vytautas Landsbergis, former President and Member of European Parliament, Lithuania; Dr. Stephen Larrabee, RAND Corporation, United States; Mr. Mark Leonard, The Foreign Policy Center, United Kingdom; The Honorable Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Member of European Parliament, Germany; Mr. Tod Lindberg, Policy Review, United States; Mr. Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch, United States; Mr. Will Marshall, Progressive Policy Institute, United States; Prof. Dr. Margarita Mathiopoulos, University of Potsdam, Germany; Mr. Clifford May, United States; The Honorable John McCain, Senator, United States; Dr. Michael McFaul, United States; Mr. Matteo Mecacci, Italy; Mr. Mark Medish, Former Senior Director of the National Security Council, United States; Prof. Dr. Thomas O. Melia, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, United States; Dr. Sarah E. Mendelson, United States; Mr. Michael Mertes, Dimap Consult, Germany; The Honorable Ilir Meta, Former Prime Minister, Albania; Mr. Adam Michnik, Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland; The Honorable Richard Morningstar, Former Ambassador to the EU, United States; Dr. Joshua Muravchik, American Enterprise Institute, United States; Gen. Klaus Naumann (ret.), Former Chairman NATO Military Committee, Germany; The Honorable Dietmar Nietan, Member of Parliament, Germany; Mr. James O’Brien, Former Presidential Envoy to the Balkans, United States; The Honorable Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Member of European Parliament, Poland; The Honorable Cem Ozdemir, Member of European Parliament, Germany; Dr. Can Paker, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, Turkey; Ambassador Mark Palmer, Capital Development Company, LLC, United States; Mr. Martin Peretz, United States; The Honorable Dr. Friedbert Pflueger, Member of Parliament, Germany; Ms. Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute, United States; Mr. Florentino Portero, Strategic Studies Group, Spain; Ms. Samantha Ravich, Phd, Long Term Strategy Project, United States; The Honorable Janusz Reiter, Center for International Relations, Poland; The Honorable Alex Rondos, Former Ambassador, Greece; The Honorable Jim Rosapepe, Former Ambassador to Romania, United States; Dr. Jacques Rupnik, Center for International Studies and Research, France; Prof. Dr. Eberhard Sandschneider, German Council on Foreign Relations, Germany; Mr. Randy Scheunemann, Project for the New American Century, United States; Dr. Gary Schmitt, Project for the New American Century, United States; Dr. Simon Serfaty, Center for Strategic and International Studies, United States; The Honorable Stephen Sestanovich, United States; Mr. Radek Sikorski, American Enterprise Institute, United States; Mr. Stefano Silvestri, Institute for International Affairs, Italy; Mr. Martin Simecka, Editor, Slovakia; Dr. Gary Smith, American Academy in Berlin, Germany; Dr. Abraham Sofaer, Hoover Institution, United States; Mr. James Steinberg, The Brookings Institution, United States; Mr. Gary Titley, Member of European Parliament, United Kingdom; Mr. Ivan Vejvoda, Fund for Open Society, Serbia; The Honorable Sasha Vondra, Former Deputy Foreign Minister, Czech Republic; Dr. Celeste Wallander, Center for Strategic and International Studies, United States; Prof. Ruth Wedgwood, United States; Dr. Richard Weitz, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, United States; Mr. Kenneth Weinstein, Hudson Institute, United States; Ms. Jennifer Windsor, Freedom House, United States; Mr. R. James Woolsey, United States.
Other examples include “Violence begets violence” by Khassan Baiev in The Boston Globe on 13th September 2004, http://www.iht.com/articles/538399.html, and the delightfully hallucinogenic piece by Richard Holbrooke and Mark Brzezinski (nephew of Zbigniew) in The Financial Times of 7th October 2004, calling for “tough love” to be visited on Russia. There are many more such pieces listed on the web site of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, http://www.peaceinchechnya.org/
RUSSIANS: "SCHOOL SEIZURE WAS PLANNED IN WASHINGTON AND LONDON."
Russia states ‘household figures’ are involved in the Beslan massacre of Russian schoolchildren. The connection also exists between Zakavew granted political asylum in London and Akhmadov granted political asylum in the United States.
Russia has retaliated by demanding that Akhmad Zakayew, now being given sanctuary in London and Ilyas Akhmadov now residing in the US, be turned over to Russia for planning and conducting the Beslan massacre. #msg-3959917
-Am
* RUSSIA * BESLAN * HOSTAGE-TAKING * MASTERMINDS * TORSHIN * BIGGER MEN BEHIND BASAYEV & MASKHADOV: BESLAN COMMISSION HEAD
2004-11-16 20:33 VLADIKAVKAZ, November 16 (RIA Novosti's Albina Olisayeva) - Much bigger figures are looming behind Shamil Basayev and Aslan Maskhadov, Chechen separatist leaders assumed to have masterminded the Beslan school hostage-taking act of early September. The opinion belongs to a parliamentary Beslan investigation commission, Alexander Torshin, its head, said to a news conference.
"They are household figures. The people are pursuing their ends. They are evidently working outside Russia. I don't want to mention universally known names now. The men are sitting pretty in London," was the only vague information that came from the MP.
The Beslan tragedy is to be regarded as a link in a chain of terror acts to strike the entire Caucasus and undermine Russia, he pointed out.
"The game is on at a very high level, and we shall do what we can to track down those who plotted and perpetrated the act." Thus, the commission intends to appeal to the Foreign Intelligence Service for relevant information.
RUSSIANS: "SCHOOL SEIZURE WAS PLANNED IN WASHINGTON AND LONDON." September 11, 2004
Sept. 7--RUSSIAN NEWS SERVICE: "SCHOOL SEIZURE WAS PLANNED IN WASHINGTON AND LONDON."
Under this headline, the Russians news agency KMNews.ru today carries an unsigned commentary, laying the blame for the Beslan events at the doorstep of U.S. and British agencies, in rather explicit terms.
Its point of departure is that Shamil Basayev, the brutal Chechen field commander, has been linked to the attack (something that Putin advisor Aslambek Aslakhanov yesterday said was known to the Russian FSB).
The article plays up the recent rapprochement of London and Washington with key representatives of Aslan Maskhadov: Britain's giving asylum to Akhmad Zakayev (December 2003) and the USA doing the same for Ilyas Akhmadov (August 2004).
KMNews writes: "In early August, ... `Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic-Ichkeria' Ilyas Akhmadov received political asylum in the USA. And for his `outstanding services,' Akhmadov received a Reagan-Fascell grant, including a monthly stipend, medical insurance, and a well-equipped office with all the support services that might be needed, including the possibility of meetings with people from political circles and leading U.S. media....
"What about our partners in the `anti-terrorist coalition,' who provided asylum, offices and money to Maskhadov's representatives?" Citing the official expressions of sympathy and offers of help from President Bush, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, KMNews continues, "But let's not shed tears of gratitude just yet. First we should ask: were `Special Representative of the President of CRI' Zakayev or `Minister of Foreign Affairs of the CRI' Akhmadov, located in Great Britain and the USA, aware of the terrorist acts that were in preparation? Beyond a doubt -- as the French say, noblesse oblige: their position required it. And let's also find out, how Akhmadov is spending the money provided by the Reagan-Fascell Foundation. We note: this Foundation is financed by the U.S. Congress through the budget of the State Department!
"Thus, the conclusion is obvious. Willingly or not, Downing Street and the White House provoked the guerrillas to these latest attacks. Willingly or not, Great Britain and the USA have nurtured the separatists with material, information and diplomatic resources. Willingly or not, the policy of London and Washington fostered the current terrorist acts. "As the ancients said, cui bono? Perhaps we are too hasty with such sweeping accusations against our `friends' and `partners'? Is there a motive for the Anglo-American `anti-terrorist coalition' to fan the fires of terror in the North Caucasus?
"Alas, there is a motive. It is no secret, that the West is vitally interested in maintaining instability in the Caucasus. That makes it easier to pump out the fossil fuels, extracted in the Caspian region, and it makes it easier to control Georgia and Azerbaijan, and to exert influence on Armenia. Finally, it makes it easier to drive Russia out of the Caspian and the Caucasus. Divide et impera! - the leaders of the Roman Empire already introduced this simple formula for subjugation.
"Alas, it must be recognized that the co-authors of the current tragic events are to be found not in the Arab countries of the Middle East, but on the banks of the Thames and the Potomac. Will the leadership of Russia be able to take decisions, in this situation?
"Yes - if there is the political will. The first thing, is that black must be called blck, and white white. It is time to admit that no "antiterrorist coalition" exists, that the West is pursuing its egotistical interests (spreading its political influence, seizing fossil fuels deposits, etc.).
Our own coalition needs to be formed, with nations that are genuinely interested in eliminating terror in the North Caucasus.
"Finally, it is time to change the entire tactics and strategy of counterterrorism measures. It is obvious that catching female suicide bombers on the streets of Moscow or carrying out operations to free children who are taken hostage, are, so to speak, the `last line of defense.' It is time to learn to make preemptive strikes against the enemy, and it's time to carry combat onto the territory of the enemy. Otherwise, we shall be defeated."
[Source: Le Monde] PARIS, SEPT. 7TH (EIRNS)--PUTIN TO A GROUP OF 30 JOURNALISTS AND RUSSIAN SPECIALISTS : "CERTAIN WESTERN CIRCLES WOULD LIKE TO WEAKEN RUSSIA AS THE ROMANS WANTED TO DESTROY CARTHAGE."
{Le Monde} (Sept 8) gives extensive quotes from the 3.5 hour meeting, held Monday evening by Russian President Vladimir Putin with some thirty foreign journalists and Russian specialists at his Novo Ogarevo residence outside Moscow. The Kremlin has not released a transcript.
(The British {Guardian} and {Independent} also carried coverage, but the account in {Le Monde} was marginally less fragmentary.)
"There is no link between Russian policy in Chechnya and the hostage-taking in Beslan," reaffirmed the Russian President.
According to Le Monde: "The aim of that international terrorism, supported more or less openly by foreign states, whose names the Russian president didn't want to name, is to weaken Russia from the inside, by criminalizing its economy, by provoking its disintegration via propagating separatism in the Caucasus and the transformation of the region into a staging ground for actions directed against the Russian Federation."
"Mr. Putin," continues Le Monde, "reiterated the accusation he had launched in a veiled form against western countries which appear to use double-talk.
On the one side, their leaders assure the Russian President of their solidarity in the fight against terrorism. On the other hand, the intelligence services and the military -- `who have not abandoned their Cold War prejudices' [quote from Putin] -- entertain contacts with those the international press calls the `rebels.' `Why are those who emulate Bin Laden called terrorists and the people who kill children, rebels? Where is the logic?' asked Vladimir Putin, then providing the answer: `Because certain political circles in the West want to weaken Russia just like the Romans wanted to destroy Cartage.' But, continued Putin, `we will not allow this scenario to come to pass.'"
Continues Le Monde, "This is, according to him, a bad calculation because Russia is a factor of stability. By weakening it, the Cold War nostalgics act clearly against the interests of their country." And Putin continues: "We are the sincere champions of this cooperation [against terrorism], we are open and loyal partners. But if foreign services have contacts with the `rebels,' they cannot be as reliable allies, as Russia is for them."
[Source: London Guardian, Sept. 7]
PUTIN ON NEGOTIATING WITH ASLAN MASKHADOV'S FORCES.
In {Guardian} correspondent Jonathan Steele's account of the meeting with Putin, this direct quotation is given from the Russian President's response on the question of negotiating with the Chechen guerrillas:
"Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks, ask him what he wants and give it to him so he leaves you in peace? You find it possible to set some limitations in your dealings with these bastards, so why should we talk to people who are child-killers?"
[Source: Russian wires]
Sept. 7--OFFICIAL MOURNING IN RUSSIA. Red Square was filled by demonstrators expressing grief and solidarity against the attacks on Russia, in the second day of mourning for the victims of the Beslan massacre. Some carried placards stating their support for President Putin. The official Kremlin web site showed the President at a service in one of Moscow's Russian Orthodox churches.
[Source: Kremln web site]
Sept. 7--PUTIN VISIT TO GERMANY POSTPONED. The Kremlin today announced the postponement of Russian-German talks that had been slated for Sept. 10-11.
[Source: RIA Novosti]
Sept. 7--RUSSIA ASKS EXTRADITION OF ZAKAYEV, AKHMADOV.
RIA Novosti reports a statement from the Russia Foreign Ministry's Department of Information and Press (not available to be checked on the Ministry site), which indicates that Russia will put the United States and Britain on the spot about extraditing two top Chechen separatist officials, who have been given asylum in Washington and London, respectively.
They are Akhmed Zakayev, known as a "special representative" of Aslan Maskhadov (in London), and Ilyas Akhmadov, the "Foreign Minister" of the unrecognized "Chechen Republic-Ichkeria" (now in the USA).
RIA Novosti quotes the document as saying, "The relevant Russian agencies have never ceased working with our foreign partners to get persons, complicit in terrorist activity, handed over for trial in Russia. The first results of the investigation of the terrorists act in Beslan point to the complicity of Aslan Maskhadov and his henchmen." (Zakayev has issued statements, denying Maskhadov's involvement, but saying that Maskhadov offered his services as a mediator, during the incident.
Zakayev wrote an op-ed in the {Guardian}, claiming that Maskhadov does not advocate killing children, but understands what happened as an act of desperation because thousands of children were killed by the Russians during the two wars in Chechnya.)
The Foreign Ministry document goes on to say that "the latest crimes of the guerrillas, especially those committed recently in North Ossetia, will help many people in the West, where Zakayev and Akhamadov have found political asylum, see the true face of terror and understand how misled they have been."
I was waiting to see what kind of terrorist attack would take place to commemorate Putin’s trip to Turkey against the wishes of the United States. This could be it.
Putin has tied the energy knot with Ankara in an effort to expand Russia’s natural gas exports.
The last time Putin was scheduled to go to Turkey Bush and the Chechens slaughtered a large number of Russian school children. Documented in the following links is an ongoing pattern, the Chechens terrorist attacks at the behest of Bush helping U.S. interests.
RUSSIANS: "SCHOOL SEIZURE WAS PLANNED IN WASHINGTON AND LONDON." #msg-4589620
Turkey is a key piece in Putin's overall strategy to re-establish a sphere of influence. Behind the Kremlin's rhetoric against a unipolar world is not only veiled criticism of U.S. hegemony, but a reminder that Siberian fields hold the largest deposits of natural gas. #msg-4775359
The U.S. is not interested in Caspian oil to supply its own internal industry. The U.S. is grabbing for control of the Caspian oil fields because other countries need this oil--and because the U.S. wants to control them. Other imperialist rivals--including Germany and Japan--are "energy poor" and need access to oilfields outside their borders. Most Third World countries are heavily dependent on imported oil. #msg-3775550
The United States wants to control all of the oil and obviously gas in order to dominate the world.
-Am
Gas explosion in southern Russia believed the result of sabotage
December 9, 2004
MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) - Investigators think an explosion that ripped through a gas pipeline in the southern Russian region of Dagestan was caused by sabotage and have opened a criminal case on charges of terrorism, the regional Interior Ministry said Thursday.
Two firefighters were injured as they responded to the blaze that broke out on the region's main gas pipeline at around 10 p.m. Wednesday, about one kilometre west of the capital Makhachkala, said Murtazali Gadzhiyev, Dagestan's regional emergency situations minister.
Nineteen bystanders sustained burns and were hospitalized, said Dagestani Deputy Interior Minister Magomed Omarov.
A second explosion occurred about 25 minutes after the fire broke out, said Sergei Kozhemyak, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry's southern branch.
Investigators initially attributed the explosion to a technical accident, but Omarov said it was now attributed to terrorism, according to preliminary information.
Chechen rebel leaders have threatened and been blamed for attacks against pipelines, electricity towers and other infrastructure in Russia. Terrorism was suspected in a June oil pipeline rupture in Dagestan, which borders on Chechnya.
Wednesday's explosion left several districts of Dagestan and the neighbouring Caspian Sea nation of Azerbaijan without gas, NTV television reported. The state-controlled Gazprom natural gas company promised to restore supplies by Thursday night.
Osama bin Laden sought to buy radioactive material for use against the United States from his supporters in Chechnya who are supported by Bush. #msg-4307815
-Am
‘Osama planned storing of radioactive material’
Daily Times Monitor
LAHORE: Bin Laden sought to acquire radioactive material for a “dirty bomb”, claims a book written by a senior aide to the Al Qaeda chief, The Sunday Times has reported.
The British newspaper said that Egyptian-born Abu Walid al-Misri was believed to be the author of the forthcoming book, which details the internal tensions, debates and disillusionment within the group. Excerpts were published in a London-based Arabic newspaper last week.
Misri says that although Bin Laden was cautious about increasing the organisation’s weaponry, he bowed to pressure from the leadership’s hawks and sought to buy radioactive material from his supporters in Chechnya.
Mohammed Atef, Qaeda’s military commander and chief advocate of obtaining weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), had suggested radioactive material be stored on US soil for use in a rapid direct response to American aggression against Afghanistan.
Atef was given the go-ahead to contact Abu Khattab, a Chechen-based Saudi jihadist, and asked him to obtain materials from Russian nuclear facilities in the Caucasus. The deal never came through.
Similarly, the Taliban, who Misri says had “a considerable quantity of radioactive materials seized from smugglers”, failed to answer Al Qaeda’s request, preferring instead to sell most of it to Pakistan
As Afghanistan fell to coalition troops, Misri says, disquiet began to grow about Bin Laden’s strategy.
Bin Laden came under fire for having underestimated US determination to destroy the Qaeda network, believing that the 9/11 attacks, coming after the East African embassy bombing and the attempted sinking of the USS Cole, would deter the US from invading Afghanistan.
It was also at this time that Bin Laden fell out with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who had allowed him to stay in Afghanistan providing he did not give interviews to the western media.
Misri, who was with Bin Laden in Tora Bora, is thought to be one of Al-Qaeda’s leading theorists. When the leadership fled Afghanistan, his book records, the organisation had been devastated by the death of Atef in a US bombing raid near Kandahar.
The book also criticises the growth in Al Qaeda training camps, saying many of them were comprised of spies and that they lacked discipline.
Beyond the standard hypocritical issues we have all grown to know and love there exists an alliance between the Chechens, who are aligned with al Qaeda, and the United States leading one to believe there are recondite reasons beyond the given rationale for this interview.
Basayev is currently working with Maskadov who is currently working with Akhmadov who has been granted asylum by the United States. Basayev, Maskadov and Akhmadov are compatriots. #msg-3959917
Basayev and Bush are responsible for the slaughter of the Russian school children. #msg-4307815
-Am
Russia summons U.S. envoy over Basayev interview
Fri Jul 29, 2005 7:01 PM ET
By Oliver Bullough
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia summoned Washington's envoy on Friday to protest a U.S. television network's airing of an interview with a Chechen rebel leader that threatened to add to strains between the two countries.
In the interview, broadcast by ABC on Thursday night, warlord Shamil Basayev accused Russia of killing thousands of civilians and defended his own raids -- the bloodiest of the 10-year Chechen war -- as part of a struggle for independence.
"We invited the deputy chief of mission to express our views over the broadcasting of an interview with a terrorist. ... We expressed our strong indignation," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
"The TV channel has shown outrageous neglect of the standards of responsible journalism and general human values."
The United States condemned Basayev as a terrorist but said it could not dictate what interviews U.S. networks aired.
"This is a constitutional right of an American media outlet to broadcast an interview, and we did not have any role to play in the decision to air the interview," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
Washington has criticized some Arab media for interviews with militants and, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, asked U.S. networks to consider whether statements by al Qaeda leaders contained hidden messages before broadcasting them.
"Freedom of speech is never an issue when a popular person expresses an acceptable point of view," said ABC Nightline news program host Ted Koppel, on Thursday after the interview.
"It is of real value only because it guarantees us access to the unpopular espousing the unacceptable. Then we can reject or accept it, condemn it or embrace it. No one should have the authority to make that decision for us. Not our own government, and certainly not somebody else's," added Koppel.
'ANTI-AMERICANISM'
Basayev organized the attack on a school in Beslan in September, when 330 hostages -- more than half of them children -- died after a three-day siege.
The warlord, who has spearheaded Chechen resistance for a decade and has a $10 million price on his head, has also sent hostage-takers and suicide bombers into Moscow and other Russian towns in operations that have killed hundreds.
Russia accuses him of links to al Qaeda and says the Chechen war is part of the global struggle against terrorism.
It is quick to criticize any Western sympathy for the Chechen cause as proof of "double standards" in the fight, and has previously slammed the United States and Britain for refusing to extradite rebels.
"These notorious double standards and double approaches continue to exist. ... Undoubtedly, this sours our cooperation (with the United States) and gives a boost to terrorist activists," Anatoly Safonov, President Vladimir Putin's special representative for the war against terrorism, told Interfax news agency.
"This is the reaction not just of the Foreign Ministry but of any Russian citizen. Not long ago, our American colleagues asked why there was so much anti-Americanism in the Russian press. These publications are the reactions of our people, who have suffered such losses in Beslan and in Moscow."
Earlier this year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made unusually pointed criticism of Russian democracy, saying the Kremlin had too strong a grip on power and blocked a free press.
Basayev happily admitted he was a terrorist in the ABC interview, but said the Russians were worse. "If they are the keepers of constitutional order, if they are anti-terrorists then I spit on all these agreements and nice words," he said.
The ministry summoned Deputy Chief of Mission Daniel Russell. There is currently no U.S. ambassador in Moscow because former envoy Alexander Vershbow has only just left his post. (Additional reporting by Saul Hudson in Washington)
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