Siege Deepens Rift With West in Russia
U.S., Europe Said to Harbor Chechens

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A18


"Our basic views haven't changed," he said, referring to the U.S. policy of urging Russia to find a political solution to the Chechen conflict. "But we're not dealing with that here. We're dealing with a terrorist attack, a horrible terrorist attack on school children. And there's no question of political aspects of this."

That was not enough to satisfy Moscow. Lavrov said Russia would not tolerate interference in the Chechnya conflict. "I would advise them not to hinder Russia from settling its internal affairs," Lavrov told reporters in Moscow after meeting with New York's former mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was visiting the city to offer condolences.

Lavrov also criticized the United States and Britain for harboring people Russia considers to be Chechen terrorists linked to rebel commander Aslan Maskhadov, whom it blames for the Beslan strike. Maskhadov has denied responsibility. Britain has granted asylum to Akhmad Zakayev, and the United States has given the same status to Ilyas Akhmadov. Both men were top officials in Maskhadov's government.

"Those who provide shelter to terrorists are directly responsible for the tragedy of the Chechen people," Lavrov said.
www.washingtonpost.com...

It's beginning to look like there's a NeoCon element behind these attacks. They just found out one of the supposed female black widow bombers (TU-134 plane crash) is still alive. The passport found near the wreckage is a forgery. Gee.. sounds familiar, doesn't it? Just like the 9-11 passports. No big surprise.

This terror serves more than one purpose. All this noise in the background keeps Americans ever aware and afraid. Why, Dick Cheney has actually threated us, America. He claims that if we elect Kerry, another more catastrophic attack will happen. Ya know what folks? Who sounds like the terrorist now? And just how does Tricky Dick know what's gonna happen anyway?

Then there are the larger geo-strategic reasons to destabilize the caucuses. Putin is PISSED. The Neo Cons are playing with fire - a situation they know nothing about. Just like they know nothing about warfare. There's nothing worse than pinhead, elitist geeks - with NO military experience - driving foreign policy.

Siege Deepens Rift With West in Russia
U.S., Europe Said to Harbor Chechens

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A18

MOSCOW, Sept. 9 -- Last week's attack on a Russian school has driven new wedges between Russia and the West in the fight against terrorism, as Moscow continues to accuse the United States and European countries of coddling Chechen separatists.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced the United States and Britain on Thursday for granting asylum to Chechen opposition figures and told other countries to stay out of Russia's fight with rebels in the breakaway republic. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated that Russia might launch strikes against terrorist bases in other countries.

The statements came in a sixth day of escalating rhetoric, reflecting long-standing resentment of criticism from the West concerning Russia's handling of the war that has raged in Chechnya on and off for 10 years. That bitterness had largely been suppressed in recent years as Russia worked to improve relations with the West. But the terror strike in the southern town of Beslan last week appears to have unleashed frustrations.
www.washingtonpost.com...


The Chechens' American friends

The Washington neocons' commitment to the war on terror evaporates in Chechnya, whose cause they have made their own

John Laughland
Wednesday September 8, 2004
The Guardian

An enormous head of steam has built up behind the view that President Putin is somehow the main culprit in the grisly events in North Ossetia. Soundbites and headlines such as "Grief turns to anger", "Harsh words for government", and "Criticism mounting against Putin" have abounded, while TV and radio correspondents in Beslan have been pressed on air to say that the people there blame Moscow as much as the terrorists. There have been numerous editorials encouraging us to understand - to quote the Sunday Times - the "underlying causes" of Chechen terrorism (usually Russian authoritarianism), while the widespread use of the word "rebels" to describe people who shoot children shows a surprising indulgence in the face of extreme brutality.
On closer inspection, it turns out that this so-called "mounting criticism" is in fact being driven by a specific group in the Russian political spectrum - and by its American supporters. The leading Russian critics of Putin's handling of the Beslan crisis are the pro-US politicians Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Ryzhkov - men associated with the extreme neoliberal market reforms which so devastated the Russian economy under the west's beloved Boris Yeltsin - and the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow Centre. Funded by its New York head office, this influential thinktank - which operates in tandem with the military-political Rand Corporation, for instance in producing policy papers on Russia's role in helping the US restructure the "Greater Middle East" - has been quoted repeatedly in recent days blaming Putin for the Chechen atrocities. The centre has also been assiduous over recent months in arguing against Moscow's claims that there is a link between the Chechens and al-Qaida.
www.guardian.co.uk...


Officials: Tu-134 Suspect Is Alive

By Carl Schreck
Staff Writer The investigation into the recent spate of terrorist attacks took a confusing twist Thursday when the Interior Ministry in Chechnya announced that the suspected suicide bomber of a Tu-134 airplane was alive and well and that her passport found at the crash site was forged.

A Chechen Interior Ministry spokesman told Rossiiskaya Gazeta that Amanat Nagayeva, the main suspect in the Aug. 24 bombing of the Moscow-Volgograd flight, was alive and selling toys in the Rostov region.
www.moscowtimes.ru...

So now Tricky Dick Cheney's out there making veiled threats toward Putin. Brilliant. Can he be any more out in the open?

"What happened in Russia has demonstrated conclusively that everyone is a target," he said. "I think there will be a higher degree of cooperation from all countries as we move forward."
www.washingtonpost.com...

Summary
Pakistan's chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad "was in the US when the attacks occurred." He arrived in the US on the 4th of September, a full week before the attacks. He had meetings at the State Department "after" the attacks on the WTC. But he also had "a regular visit of consultations" with his US counterparts at the CIA and the Pentagon during the week prior to September 11.

What was the nature of these routine "pre-September 11 consultations"? Were they in any way related to the subsequent "post-September 11 consultations" pertaining to Pakistan's decision to cooperate with Washington. Was the planning of war being discussed between Pakistani and US officials?

On the 9th of September while General Ahmad was in the US, the leader of the Northern Alliance Commander Ahmad Shah Masood was assassinated. The Northern Alliance had informed the Bush Administration that the ISI was allegedly implicated in the assassination.

The Bush Administration consciously took the decision in "the post September 11 consultations" with Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad to directly "cooperate" with Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) despite its links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and its alleged role in the assassination of Commander Masood, which coincidentally occurred two days before the terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, senior Pentagon and State Department officials had been rushed to Islamabad to put the finishing touches on America's war plans. And on the Sunday prior to the onslaught of the bombing of major cities in Afghanistan (October 7th), Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad was sacked from his position as head of the ISI in what was described as a routine "reshuffling."

In the days following General Ahmad's dismissal, a report published in the Times of India, revealed the links between Pakistan's Chief spy Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad and the presumed "ring leader" of the WTC attacks Mohamed Atta. The Times of India article was based on an official intelligence report of the Delhi government that had been transmitted through official channels to Washington. Quoting an Indian government source Agence France Press (AFP) confirms in this regard that: "The evidence we [the Government of India] have supplied to the US is of a much wider range and depth than just one piece of paper linking a rogue general to some misplaced act of terrorism."

The revelation of the Times of India article has several implications. The Indian intelligence report not only points to the links between ISI Chief General Ahmad and terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta, it also indicates that other ISI officials might have had contacts with the terrorists. Moreover, it suggests that the September 11 attacks were not an act of "individual terrorism" organised by a separate Al Qaeda cell, but rather they were part of coordinated military-intelligence operation, emanating from Pakistan's ISI.

The Times of India report also sheds light on the nature of General Ahmad's "business activities" in the US during the week prior to September 11, raising the distinct possibility of ISI contacts with Mohamed Atta in the US "prior" to the attacks on the WTC, precisely at the time when General Mahmoud and his delegation were on a so-called "regular visit of consultations" with US officials.

In assessing the alleged links between the terrorists and the ISI, it should be understood that Lt. General Ahmad as head of the ISI was a "US approved appointee". As head of the ISI since 1999, he was in liaison with his US counterparts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Pentagon. Also bear in mind that Pakistan's ISI remained throughout the entire post Cold War era until the present, the launch-pad for CIA covert operations in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Balkans

The existence of an "ISI-Osama-Taliban axis" was a matter of public record. The links between the ISI and agencies of the US government including the CIA are also a matter of public record. The Bush Administration was fully cognizant of Lt. General Ahmad's role. In other words, rather than waging a campaign against international terrorism, the evidence would suggest that it is indirectly abetting international terrorism, using the Pakistani ISI as a "go-between".

The Bush Administration's links with Pakistan's ISI --including its "consultations" with General Ahmad in the week prior to September 11-- raise the issue of "complicity". While Ahmad was talking to US officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, ISI officials were allegedly also in contact with the September 11 terrorists.

In other words, according to the Indian government intelligence report, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks had links to Pakistan's ISI, which in turn has links to agencies of the US government. What this suggests is that key individuals within the US military-intelligence establishment might have known about the ISI contacts with the September 11 terrorist "ring-leader" Mohamed Atta and failed to act.
www.globalresearch.ca...