...
asks Michel Chossudovsky
A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre
and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without
supporting evidence, that "Ousmane bin Laden and his al-Qaeda
organisation were prime suspects". CIA Director George
Tenet stated that bin Laden has the capacity to plan ``multiple
attacks with little or no warning.'' Secretary of State Colin
Powell called the attacks "an act of war" and President
Bush confirmed in an evening televised address to the Nation
that he would "make no distinction between the terrorists
who committed these acts and those who harbor them". Former
CIA Director James Woolsey pointed his finger at "state
sponsorship," implying the complicity of one or more foreign
governments. In the words of former National Security Adviser,
Lawrence Eagleburger, "I think we will show when we get
attacked like this, we are terrible in our strength and in our
retribution."
Meanwhile, parroting official statements, the Western media
mantra has approved the launching of "punitive actions"
directed against civilian targets in the Middle East. In the
words of William Saffire writing in the New York Times: "When
we reasonably determine our attackers' bases and camps, we must
pulverize them -- minimizing but accepting the risk of collateral
damage -- and act overtly or covertly to destabilize terror's
national hosts".
The following text outlines the history of Ousmane Bin Laden
and the links of the Islamic "Jihad" to the formulation
of US foreign policy during the Cold War and its aftermath.
Prime suspect in the New York and Washington terrorists attacks,
branded by the FBI as an "international terrorist"
for his role in the African US embassy bombings, Saudi born
Ousmane bin Laden was recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war
"ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight Soviet
invaders". 1
In 1979 "the largest covert operation in the history of
the CIA" was launched in response to the Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist government of
Babrak Kamal.2:
"With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's
ISI [Inter Services Intelligence], who wanted to turn the Afghan
jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the
Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries
joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and 1992. Tens of thousands
more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually more than
100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by
the Afghan jihad."3
The Islamic "jihad" was supported by the United States
and Saudi Arabia with a significant part of the funding generated
from the Golden Crescent drug trade:
"In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security
Decision Directive 166,...[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert
military aid to the mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret
Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan
through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The
new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in
arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987,
... as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon
specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's
ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA
specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help
plan operations for the Afghan rebels."4
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using Pakistan's military
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) played a key role in training
the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA sponsored guerrilla training
was integrated with the teachings of Islam:
"Predominant themes were that Islam was a complete socio-political
ideology, that holy Islam was being violated by the atheistic
Soviet troops, and that the Islamic people of Afghanistan should
reassert their independence by overthrowing the leftist Afghan
regime propped up by Moscow."5
PAKISTAN'S INTELLIGENCE APPARATUS
Pakistan's ISI was used as a "go-between". The CIA
covert support to the "jihad" operated indirectly
through the Pakistani ISI, --i.e. the CIA did not channel its
support directly to the Mujahideen. In other words, for these
covert operations to be "successful", Washington was
careful not to reveal the ultimate objective of the "jihad",
which consisted in destroying the Soviet Union.
In the words of CIA's Milton Beardman "We didn't train
Arabs". Yet according to Abdel Monam Saidali, of the Al-aram
Center for Strategic Studies in Cairo, bin Laden and the "Afghan
Arabs" had been imparted "with very sophisticated
types of training that was allowed to them by the CIA"
6
CIA's Beardman confirmed, in this regard, that Ousmane bin Laden
was not aware of the role he was playing on behalf of Washington.
In the words of bin Laden (quoted by Beardman): "neither
I, nor my brothers saw evidence of American help". 7
Motivated by nationalism and religious fervor, the Islamic warriors
were unaware that they were fighting the Soviet Army on behalf
of Uncle Sam. While there were contacts at the upper levels
of the intelligence hierarchy, Islamic rebel leaders in theatre
had no contacts with Washington or the CIA.
With CIA backing and the funneling of massive amounts of US
military aid, the Pakistani ISI had developed into a "parallel
structure wielding enormous power over all aspects of government".
8 The ISI had a staff composed of military and intelligence
officers, bureaucrats, undercover agents and informers, estimated
at 150,000. 9
Meanwhile, CIA operations had also reinforced the Pakistani
military regime led by General Zia Ul Haq:
"''Relations between the CIA and the ISI [Pakistan's military
intelligence] had grown increasingly warm following [General]
Zia's ouster of Bhutto and the advent of the military regime,'...
During most of the Afghan war, Pakistan was more aggressively
anti-Soviet than even the United States. Soon after the Soviet
military invaded Afghanistan in 1980, Zia [ul Haq] sent his
ISI chief to destabilize the Soviet Central Asian states. The
CIA only agreed to this plan in October 1984.... `the CIA was
more cautious than the Pakistanis.' Both Pakistan and the United
States took the line of deception on Afghanistan with a public
posture of negotiating a settlement while privately agreeing
that military escalation was the best course."10
THE GOLDEN CRESCENT DRUG TRIANGLE
The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately
related to the CIA's covert operations. Prior to the Soviet-Afghan
war, opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed
to small regional markets. There was no local production of
heroin. 11 In this regard, Alfred McCoy's study confirms that
within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan,
"the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world's
top heroin producer, supplying 60 percent of U.S. demand. In
Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in
1979... to 1.2 million by 1985 -- a much steeper rise than in
any other nation":12
"CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the
Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they
ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across
the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates
under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds
of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing,
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate
major seizures or arrests ... U.S. officials had refused to
investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies `because
U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to
the war against Soviet influence there.' In 1995, the former
CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted
the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold
War. `Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible
to the Soviets. We didn't really have the resources or the time
to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,'... `I don't
think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has
its fallout.... There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But
the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.'"13
IN THE WAKE OF THE COLD WAR
In the wake of the Cold War, the Central Asian region is not
only strategic for its extensive oil reserves, it also produces
three quarters of the World's opium representing multibillion
dollar revenues to business syndicates, financial institutions,
intelligence agencies and organized crime. The annual proceeds
of the Golden Crescent drug trade (between 100 and 200 billion
dollars) represents approximately one third of the Worldwide
annual turnover of narcotics, estimated by the United Nations
to be of the order of $500 billion.14
With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, a new surge in
opium production has unfolded. (According to UN estimates, the
production of opium in Afghanistan in 1998-99 -- coinciding
with the build up of armed insurgencies in the former Soviet
republics-- reached a record high of 4600 metric tons.15 Powerful
business syndicates in the former Soviet Union allied with organized
crime are competing for the strategic control over the heroin
routes.
The ISI's extensive intelligence military-network was not dismantled
in the wake of the Cold War. The CIA continued to support the
Islamic "jihad" out of Pakistan. New undercover initiatives
were set in motion in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Balkans.
Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus essentially "served
as a catalyst for the disintegration of the Soviet Union and
the emergence of six new Muslim republics in Central Asia."
16.
Meanwhile, Islamic missionaries of the Wahhabi sect from Saudi
Arabia had established themselves in the Muslim republics as
well as within the Russian federation encroaching upon the institutions
of the secular State. Despite its anti-American ideology, Islamic
fundamentalism was largely serving Washington's strategic interests
in the former Soviet Union.
Following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, the civil
war in Afghanistan continued unabated. The Taliban were being
supported by the Pakistani Deobandis and their political party
the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). In 1993, JUI entered the
government coalition of Prime Minister Benazzir Bhutto. Ties
between JUI, the Army and ISI were established. In 1995, with
the downfall of the Hezb-I-Islami Hektmatyar government in Kabul,
the Taliban not only instated a hardline Islamic government,
they also "handed control of training camps in Afghanistan
over to JUI factions..." 17
And the JUI with the support of the Saudi Wahhabi movements
played a key role in recruiting volunteers to fight in the Balkans
and the former Soviet Union. Jane Defense Weekly confirms in
this regard that "half of Taliban manpower and equipment
originate[d] in Pakistan under the ISI" 18 In fact, it
would appear that following the Soviet withdrawal both sides
in the Afghan civil war continued to receive covert support
through Pakistan's ISI. 19
In other words, backed by Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI)
which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic
State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The
Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and
equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s)
and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there
is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the
ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia.
No doubt, this explains why Washington has closed its eyes on
the reign of terror imposed by the Taliban including the blatant
derogation of women's rights, the closing down of schools for
girls, the dismissal of women employees from government offices
and the enforcement of "the Sharia laws of punishment".20
THE WAR IN CHECHNYA
With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev
and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored
camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Yossef Bodansky,
director of the U.S. Congress's Task Force on Terrorism and
Unconventional Warfare, the war in Chechnya had been planned
during a secret summit of HizbAllah International held in 1996
in Mogadishu, Somalia. 21 The summit, was attended by Osama
bin Laden and high-ranking Iranian and Pakistani intelligence
officers. In this regard, the involvement of Pakistan's ISI
in Chechnya "goes far beyond supplying the Chechens with
weapons and expertise: the ISI and its radical Islamic proxies
are actually calling the shots in this war". 22
Russia's main pipeline route transits through Chechnya and Dagestan.
Despite Washington's perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism,
the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American
oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources
and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin.
The two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander
Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong
were supported by Pakistan's ISI, which also played a key role
in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army:
"[In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged
for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive
Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in
the Khost province of Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up
in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani
warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from
Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp
in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics.
In Pakistan, Basayev met the highest ranking Pakistani military
and intelligence officers: Minister of Defense General Aftab
Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar,
and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting Islamic
causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level
connections soon proved very useful to Basayev.23
Following his training and indoctrination stint, Basayev was
assigned to lead the assault against Russian federal troops
in the first Chechen war in 1995. His organization had also
developed extensive links to criminal syndicates in Moscow as
well as ties to Albanian organized crime and the Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA). In 1997-98, according to Russia's Federal Security
Service (FSB) "Chechen warlords started buying up real
estate in Kosovo... through several real estate firms registered
as a cover in Yugoslavia" 24
Basayev's organisation has also been involved in a number of
rackets including narcotics, illegal tapping and sabotage of
Russia's oil pipelines, kidnapping, prostitution, trade in counterfeit
dollars and the smuggling of nuclear materials (See Mafia linked
to Albania's collapsed pyramids, 25 Alongside the extensive
laundering of drug money, the proceeds of various illicit activities
have been funneled towards the recruitment of mercenaries and
the purchase of weapons.
During his training in Afghanistan, Shamil Basayev linked up
with Saudi born veteran Mujahideen Commander "Al Khattab"
who had fought as a volunteer in Afghanistan. Barely a few months
after Basayev's return to Grozny, Khattab was invited (early
1995) to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of
Mujahideen fighters. According to the BBC, Khattab's posting
to Chechnya had been "arranged through the Saudi-Arabian
based [International] Islamic Relief Organisation, a militant
religious organisation, funded by mosques and rich individuals
which channeled funds into Chechnya".26
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Since the Cold War era, Washington has consciously supported
Ousmane bin Laden, while at same time placing him on the FBI's
"most wanted list" as the World's foremost terrorist.
While the Mujahideen are busy fighting America's war in the
Balkans and the former Soviet Union, the FBI --operating as
a US based Police Force- is waging a domestic war against terrorism,
operating in some respects independently of the CIA which has
--since the Soviet-Afghan war-- supported international terrorism
through its covert operations.
In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad --featured by the
Bush Adminstration as "a threat to America"-- is blamed
for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the
Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key
instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans
and the former Soviet Union.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington,
the truth must prevail to prevent the Bush Adminstration together
with its NATO partners from embarking upon a military adventure
which threatens the future of humanity.
ENDNOTES
1. Hugh Davies, International: `Informers' point the finger
at bin Laden; Washington on alert for suicide bombers, The Daily
Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998.
2. See Fred Halliday, "The Un-great game: the Country that
lost the Cold War, Afghanistan, New Republic, 25 March 1996):
3. Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs,
November-December 1999.
4. Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992.
5. Dilip Hiro, Fallout from the Afghan Jihad, Inter Press Services,
21 November 1995.
6. Weekend Sunday (NPR); Eric Weiner, Ted Clark; 16 August 1998.
7. Ibid.
8. Dipankar Banerjee; Possible Connection of ISI With Drug Industry,
India Abroad, 2 December 1994.
9. Ibid
10. See Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan:
The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal, Oxford university
Press, New York, 1995. See also the review of Cordovez and Harrison
in International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
11. Alfred McCoy, Drug fallout: the CIA's Forty Year Complicity
in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive; 1 August 1997.
12.Ibid
13. Ibid.
14. Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a changing World, Technical document
no 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also Report of the International
Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations
Publication, Vienna 1999, p 49-51, And Richard Lapper, UN Fears
Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000.
15. Report of the International Narcotics Control Board, op
cit, p 49-51, see also Richard Lapper, op. cit.
16. International Press Services, 22 August 1995.
17 Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban: Exporting Extremism, Foreign Affairs,
November- December, 1999, p. 22.
18. Quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, 3 September 1998)
19. Tim McGirk, Kabul learns to live with its bearded conquerors,
The Independent, London, 6 November1996.
20. See K. Subrahmanyam, Pakistan is Pursuing Asian Goals, India
Abroad, 3 November 1995.
21. Levon Sevunts, Who's calling the shots?: Chechen conflict
finds Islamic roots in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 23 The Gazette,
Montreal, 26 October 1999..
22. Ibid
23. Ibid.
24. See Vitaly Romanov and Viktor Yadukha, Chechen Front Moves
To Kosovo Segodnia, Moscow, 23 Feb 2000.
25. The European, 13 February 1997, See also Itar-Tass, 4-5
January 2000.
BBC, 29 September 1999).
Michel
Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa This article
first appeared at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html
It is Copyright, Michel Chossudovsky Montreal, September 2001.
All rights reserved. Centre for Research on Globalisation at http://globalresearch.ca. Permission is granted to post this
text on non-commercial community internet sites, provided the
source and the URL are indicated, the essay remains intact and
the copyright note is displayed. To publish this text in printed
and/or other forms, including commercial internet sites and
excerpts, contact the author at chossudovsky@videotron.ca, fax:
1-514-4256224.
