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This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: This program underscores key aspects of the highly complex dynamics surrounding the 9/11 attacks and subsequent events.
What is missing in discussion of the attacks and subsequent events is analysis of the relationship between the Brotherhood’s Islamic fascism and the terrorist groups that occupy the headlines–Al Qaeda and ISIS, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Chechen terrorists.
Beyond that, the corporatist economic doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood and the apparent use of its knockoff terrorist groups as proxy warriors by elements of Western and Saudi intelligence are as fundamental to a true understanding of the phenomenon and they are absent from the vast bulk of media discussion.
Brotherhood offshoots have proved particularly valuable as proxy warriors in petroleum and mineral-rich areas of the Earth Island.
Very, very tragically, the world has chosen to ignore the fundamentally important Operation Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002, which revealed profound links between the Bush administration, the Islamic Free Market Institute of Grover Norquist and the funding apparatus supplying Al Qaeda and Hamas with liquidity.
The continued bloodshed is part of the price people are paying for that deadly failure.
It might be difficult for some people to understand this. A duality dominates analysis of the dynamics of this situation–a duality similar to one underlying both the Second World War and the Cold War. World War II was a very real conflict, with American service men and women, as well as those of the other Allied countries, fighting against the armies of fascism. At the same time, dominant U.S. and Western financial and industrial interests favored their cartel partners in the Axis nations and the corporatist economic philosophy they embraced.
After the official end of the combat of World War II, the U.S. and U.K. incorporated the residua of the Third Reich’s national security establishment into their own and saw to it that the fascist infrastructure in Germany, Japan and elsewhere was maintained in power, behind a thin facade of democracy.
In addition, they supported and enlisted fascists from other countries to assist with the fight against Communism. The Muslim Brotherhood was one of those.
The political duality we are experiencing is similar to that of World War II–even as American service personnel and those of other countries are fighting a very real war against Islamic fascism, powerful corporate interests are supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood fascists and their corporate philosophy.
The broadcast begins by reviewing the fact that legal advice to the Bin Laden construction firm is provided by the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm.
Sullivan & Cromwell featured Allen and John Foster Dulles as its (arguably) most important attorneys. It doesn’t require a great leap of imagination to see continuity between that firm’s role on behalf of SBG (Saudi Bin Laden Group), the Dulles brothers’ involvement with the financial networks that financed the Third Reich and the firm’s efforts on behalf of U.S. financial firms seeking to blunt the Treasury Department’s proposed new anti-terrorism regulations.
Note that Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was forced to resign shortly after the Operation Green Quest raids of 3/20/2002.
Next, we note that the presence in Chechnya of Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi and Al Qaeda related elements is well documented. Saudi Prince Bandar (nicknamed “Bandar Bush”) has been quite frank about Saudi control of the Chechen fighters.
Two different types of fascist cadres are operating in tandem in Ukraine–in addition to the OUN/B heirs such as the Pravy Sektor formations, Chechen fighters (almost certainly allied with some element of Muslim Brotherhood) are now fighting alongside them and under the Pravy Sektor administrative command.
The Chechen formations are described as “brothers” of the Islamic State. (The Boston Marathon bombing appears to have been blowback from a covert operation backing jihadists in the Caucasus. That “op” has apparently been extended to Ukraine.)
Much of the program focuses on the corporatist economic philosophy of the Brotherhood. It is this economic philosophy that has endeared it to powerful corporate interests in the U.S. and elsewhere, as well as the GOP.
Program Highlights Include:
- Review of the World Bank’s high regard for Ibn Khaldun, the Muslim Brotherhood’s economic theoretician.
- Review of “former” CIA official Graham Fuller’s views on the positive value of Islamic radicals.
- Review of the networking between prominent American political and diplomatic figures and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
- Review of the links between Khairat el-Shater, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.
. . . . This period, stretching from the end of World War I to just after the end of World War II, was characterized by three very evil men: Jack Philby, a British spy; Ibn Saud, his Arab protégé; and Allen Dulles, an American spy and Wall Street lawyer specializing in international finance.
The racist nature of their secret war against Zionism does not appear in history books for a simple reason. Jack Philby later was paid by Western oil companies to write pro-Arab propaganda disguised as history. Ibn Saud is remembered as the glorious Arab leader who unified Saudi Arabia and led the richest oil region in the world into partnership with the West. Philby, if he is remembered at all, has the reputation of a scholarly British Arabist overshadowed by his son, Kim, the infamous Soviet double agent.
Jack Philby has become an obscure footnote to the history of the Cold war. But his legacy was far from minor. He is one of the lesser-known but most influential persons in the modern history of the Middle East, the renegade British intelligence agent who plucked an obscure terrorist out of the desert and helped to make him the king of Saudi Arabia. Ibn Saud was very much his creation. Philby stole the information from British intelligence files that engineered Saudi control over the holiest shrines of the Moslem world.
Jack Philby and Ibn Saud betrayed the British Empire and made the American oil companies economic masters of the region. The man who helped them do it was Allen Dulles, an American spy who had befriended Philby while he was coordinating American intelligence gathering in the Middle East in the first half of the 1920’s.
Between them, these three men built the very foundations of the modern Middle East. They were the architects of the oil weapon, the instigators of war, the manipulators of history. More important, Philby’s and Ibn Saud’s political and philosophical allegiance was to Nazi Germany, while much of Dulles’s profits came from the same source. . . .
1a. The broadcast reviews the fact that legal advice to the Bin Laden construction firm is provided by the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm.
“Furthermore, the family company maintained a satellite office in Maryland during the 1990’s, employs a public relations agency in Manhattan, and receives legal advice from the white-shoe law firm Sullivan & Cromwell.”
2. Sullivan & Cromwell featured Allen and John Foster Dulles as its (arguably) most important attorneys. It doesn’t require a great leap of imagination to see continuity between that firm’s role on behalf of SBG (Saudi Bin Laden Group), the Dulles brothers’ involvement with the financial networks that financed the Third Reich and the firm’s efforts on behalf of U.S. financial firms seeking to blunt the Treasury Department’s proposed new anti-terrorism regulations.
Note that Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was forced to resign shortly after the article excerpted here was published.
“Finance Sector Hits at Moves to Curb Terror Funds” by Edward Alden; Financial Times; 7/3/2002; p. 2.
“The U.S. financial services industry has launched its first serious challenge to the slew of new regulations from Washington aimed at staunching the flow of funds to terrorist groups.”
3. “The concerns, spelled out this week by 11 industry trade groups representing nearly every major U.S. financial institution, cast serious doubt on the U.S. administration’s plans to implement the most important of those regulations by a July 23 deadline.”
(Idem.)
4. “They could also mark the beginning of a split between the government and industry over just how much new regulation in needed to discourage financing of terrorist groups.”
(Idem.)
5. “The Treasury department wants all banks and other financial groups to set up elaborate schemes to monitor correspondent and private banking accounts opened in the U.s. by foreign banks or individuals. These are thought to be a main conduit for dirty money flowing into the U.S. financial system.”
(Idem.)
6. “The rules could also seriously disrupt established financial relationships, the letter warned. In the most extreme instances, financial institutions from a handful of countries such as Russia, the Philippines and Egypt could be barred from dealing with U.S. banks unless they make available data on all their customers worldwide.”
(Idem.)
7. “H. Rodgin Cohen, a lawyer with Sullivan & Cromwell, who led the effort on behalf of the 11 groups, said the Treasury’s definition of risky correspondent accounts was ‘so broad that they pick up basically all relationships between U.S. financial institutions and foreign institutions and foreign financial institutions.”
(Idem.)
8. The broadcast delineates Labaviere’s allegations concerning the profound relationship between the Saudis, the Muslim Brotherhood, elements of U.S. intelligence and the Bin Laden organization.
. . . . Many times over, American, European and Arab diplomats and public officials advised me to follow the trail of ‘the dollars of terror.’ . . Every time, I was brought back to both the official and the secret structures of Saudi finance. Every time, I stumbled on the fraternity of the Muslim Brothers. . .Where does the money for this dangerous proselytism come from? . . . Saudi Arabia and other oil monarchies allied with the United States. The greatest world power is fully aware of this development. Indeed, its information [intelligence] agencies have encouraged it . . . . The CIA and its Saudi and Pakistani homologues continue [as of 1999] to sponsor Islamism. . . .
9. Highlighting the comparisons between the Brotherhood’s program and those of Mussolini and Hitler, the broadcast continues:
. . . . Taking Italy’s choices under Mussolini for inspiration, the economic program set three priorities . . . The social policy foresaw a new law on labor, founded on corporations. This economic program would more directly reveal its relationship to totalitarian ideologies a few years later, with the works of Mohamed Ghazali . . . . Mohamed Ghazali recommended ‘an economic regimen similar to that which existed in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.’ . . . The moral code is also an important component in this program, which is intended to create the ‘new Muslim man.’ . . . The notion of the equality of the sexes is inherently negated by the concept of the supremacy of male social responsibilities. . .the ‘natural’ place of the woman is in the home. . . .
10. About the Muslim Brotherhood’s economic doctrine:
“Islam in Office” by Stephen Glain; Newsweek; 7/3–10/2006.
Judeo-Christian scripture offers little economic instruction. The Book of Deuteronomy, for example, is loaded with edicts on how the faithful should pray, eat, bequeath, keep the holy festivals and treat slaves and spouses, but it is silent on trade and commerce. In Matthew, when Christ admonishes his followers to ‘give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s,’ he is effectively conceding fiscal and monetary authority to pagan Rome. Islam is different. The prophet Muhammad—himself a trader—preached merchant honor, the only regulation that the borderless Levantine market knew. . . .
. . . In Muslim liturgy, the deals cut in the souk become a metaphor for the contract between God and the faithful. And the business model Muhammad prescribed, according to Muslim scholars and economists, is very much in the laissez-faire tradition later embraced by the West. Prices were to be set by God alone—anticipating by more than a millennium Adam Smith’s reference to the ‘invisible hand’ of market-based pricing. Merchants were not to cut deals outside the souk, an early attempt to thwart insider trading. . . . In the days of the caliphate, Islam developed the most sophisticated monetary system the world had yet known. Today, some economists cite Islamic banking as further evidence of an intrinsic Islamic pragmatism. Though still guided by a Qur’anic ban on riba, or interest, Islamic banking has adapted to the needs of a booming oil region for liquidity. In recent years, some 500 Islamic banks and investment firms holding $2 trillion in assets have emerged in the Gulf States, with more in Islamic communities of the West.
British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown wants to make London a global center for Islamic finance—and elicits no howl of protest from fundamentalists. How Islamists might run a central bank is more problematic: scholars say they would manipulate currency reserves, not interest rates.
The Muslim Brotherhood hails 14th century philosopher Ibn Khaldun as its economic guide. Anticipating supply-side economics, Khaldun argued that cutting taxes raises production and tax revenues, and that state control should be limited to providing water, fire and free grazing land, the utilities of the ancient world. The World Bank has called Ibn Khaldun the first advocate of privatization. [Emphasis added.] His founding influence is a sign of moderation. If Islamists in power ever do clash with the West, it won’t be over commerce. . . .
11. In addition to the apparent use of Muslim Brotherhood/Islamist elements as proxy warriors against Russia and China, the Brotherhood’s corporatist economics are beloved to Graham Fuller, as well as corporate elements cdhampioned by Grover Norquist.
“Chechnyan Power” by Mark Ames; nsfwcorp.com; 6/5/2013.
. . . Fuller comes from that faction of CIA Cold Warriors who believed (and still apparently believe) that fundamentalist Islam, even in its radical jihadi form, does not pose a threat to the West, for the simple reason that fundamentalist Islam is conservative, against social justice, against socialism and redistribution of wealth, and in favor of hierarchical socio-economic structures. Socialism is the common enemy to both capitalist America and to Wahhabi Islam, according to Fuller.
According to journalist Robert Dreyfuss’ book “Devil’s Game,” Fuller explained his attraction to radical Islam in neoliberal/libertarian terms:
“There is no mainstream Islamic organization...with radical social views,” he wrote. “Classical Islamic theory envisages the role of the state as limited to facilitating the well-being of markets and merchants rather than controlling them. Islamists have always powerfully objected to socialism and communism....Islam has never had problems with the idea that wealth is unevenly distributed.” . . . .
12. Fuller has long been an advocate of a “turn to the Brotherhood.”
. . . Some federal agents worry that the Muslim Brotherhood has dangerous links to terrorism. But some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe its influence offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists. ‘It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world,’ said Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA official specializing in the Middle East. ‘It’s something we can work with.’ Demonizing the Brotherhood ‘would be foolhardy in the extreme’ he warned.” . . .
13. More about the corporatist economic philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood follows. Note that Khairat el-Shater was alleged by Egyptian intelligence to have been running Mohamed Morsi, in effect. (We covered this in FTR #787.) In turn, he was reported to be serving as a liaison between Morsi and Mohamed Zawahiri, the brother of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri. Shater was also networked with: Anne Patterson, U.S. ambassador to Egypt, GOP Senator John McCain and GOP Senator Lindsay Graham. In turn, Shater was alleged to have transferred $50 million from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to Al-Qaeda at the time that he was networking with the Americans and Morsi. Hey, what’s $50 million between friends?
“The GOP Brotherhood of Egypt” by Avi Asher-Schapiro; Salon.com; 1/25/2012.
While Western alarmists often depict Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as a shadowy organization with terrorist ties, the Brotherhood’s ideology actually has more in common with America’s Republican Party than with al-Qaida. Few Americans know it but the Brotherhood is a free-market party led by wealthy businessmen whose economic agenda embraces privatization and foreign investment while spurning labor unions and the redistribution of wealth. Like the Republicans in the U.S., the financial interests of the party’s leadership of businessmen and professionals diverge sharply from those of its poor, socially conservative followers.
The Brotherhood, which did not initially support the revolution that began a year ago, reaped its benefits, capturing nearly half the seats in the new parliament, which was seated this week, and vaulting its top leaders into positions of power.
Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat Al-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda.
At Al-Shater’s luxury furniture outlet Istakbal, a new couch costs about 6,000 Egyptian pounds, about $1,000 in U.S. currency. In a country where 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, Istakbal’s clientele is largely limited to Egypt’s upper classes.
Although the Brothers do draw significant support from Egypt’s poor and working class, “the Brotherhood is a firmly upper-middle-class organization in its leadership,” says Shadi Hamid, a leading Muslim Brotherhood expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Not surprisingly, these well-to-do Egyptians are eager to safeguard their economic position in the post-Mubarak Egypt. Despite rising economic inequality and poverty, the Brotherhood does not back radical changes in Egypt’s economy.
The FJP’s economic platform is a tame document, rife with promises to root out corruption and tweak Egypt’s tax and subsidies systems, with occasional allusions to an unspecific commitment to “social justice.” The platform praises the mechanisms of the free market and promises that the party will work for “balanced, sustainable and comprehensive economic development.” It is a program that any European conservative party could get behind. . . .
14. An article touches on Russian charges that the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda-related elements are involved with the Chechen rebels. The article is patronizing and dismissive in tone, despite the fact that the presence in Chechnya of Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi and Al Qaeda related elements is well documented.
Note that Prince Bandar (nicknamed “Bandar Bush”) has been quite frank about Saudi control of the Chechen fighters.
Three years after Russian forces poured into Chechnya for the second time, the war grinds on, but Russia’s characterization of the fight without end has changed. No longer are 85,000 Russian troops and police officers simply engaged in crushing a battle for independence; instead, Chechnya has become Russia’s war on terror. Using the rationale and sometimes the rhetoric of the Bush administration’s antiterrorism campaign, commanders here said this week that the Chechen war is financed, armed and increasingly fought by Islamic militants from abroad. The shift explains Russia’s roiling tensions with Georgia the former Soviet republic bordering Chechnya that president Vladimir Putin has accused of sheltering what he calls Chechen and international terrorists. . . .
. . . .The accusations against Georgia–like the accusations against the Chechens are sponsored by Muslim Brotherhood and other foreign fighters—appear rooted in Russia’s frustration and a desire to external blame for the continued fighting. [Those accusations appear to be based in considerable measure in fact–D.E.] . . .
15. FTR#’s 330, 334, and 337 describe [Saudi intelligence chief] Prince Turki’s resignation shortly before the 9/11 attacks. In addition, FTR#343, among other programs, discusses the allegation that Turki “ran” Osama Bin Laden. An intriguing (and detailed) piece of scholarship recently linked Turki, the Saudi Royal family, the Muslim Brotherhood and Youssef Nada (Al Taqwa’s founder.) In turn, the broadcast delineates these elements’ activities vis a vis the Chechen rebels.
The president of the Al Taqwa Bank Group is Youssef Mustapha Nada, naturalized Italian, and a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaa-al-Islamiya, which is directly allied with Al Qaeda through Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, said by some intelligence sources to be the brains behind bin Laden. When the Bahamas closed Al Taqwa Bank Ltd. early this year, Swiss authorities required a name change in Al Taqwa Bank, which then became registered in Switzerland as Nada Management Organization SA. It is the same Al Taqwa Bank. . . .
16. Nada’s relationship with the Brotherhood, the Saudis and Islamist finance is highlighted in the following passage.
In 1970, Youssef Nada moved to Saudi Arabia and, with help from the Muslim Brotherhood, established contact with members of the Saudi Royal family, and founded a construction company in Riyadh, much the same as the Bin Laden family. He remained active in Riyadh, and soon founded the first Islamic bank in Egypt, the Faisal Bank.
(Idem.)
17. Reviewing information first presented in FTR#343, the broadcast underscores the relationship between former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki, Bin Laden, Nada and the Faisal Islamic Bank.
The Faisal Islamic Bank of Saudi Arabia is the head bank of a number of affiliated Islamic Banks under that name across the Islamic world from Egypt to Pakistan to the Emirates and Malaysia. The head of Faisal Islamic Bank of Saudi Arabia is former Saudi Intelligence Chief, Turki al-Faisal. Faisal Islamic Bank is directly involved in running accounts for bin Laden and his associates, and has been named by Luxembourg banking authorities in this regard.
(Ibid.; p. 7.)
18. The nexus outlined above is intimately involved with the Al Haramain religious charity, allegedly used to channel funds to the Chechen rebels.
In Sudan, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida have been named as principals in the Shamal bank in the 1990’s. The bank transferred the funds for the US Embassy bombings in East Africa in 1998, according to trial testimony in New York. A 15% share in al Shamal is held by wealthy Saudi financier, Saleh Abdullah Kamel of the Dallah al Baraka Group, which owns the Jeddah al Baraka bank. The other non-Sudanese shareholder of the Khartoum al Shamal bank is Faisal Islamic Bank. Russian FSB intelligence has charged that al Baraka Bank was used by a Saudi religious charity, Al Haramain, to funnel funds to Islamic terrorists tied to al Qaida in Chechnya.
(Idem.)
19. Two different types of fascist cadres are operating in tandem in Ukraine–in addition to the OUN/B heirs such as the Pravy Sektor formations, Chechen fighters (almost certainly allied with some element of Muslim Brotherhood) are now fighting alongside them and under the Pravy Sektor administrative command.
The Chechen formations are described as “brothers” of the Islamic State.
The Boston Marathon bombing appears to have been blowback from a covert operation backing jihadists in the Caucasus.
“Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 7/7/2015.
In a curiously upbeat account, The New York Times reports that Islamic militants have joined with Ukraine’s far-right and neo-Nazi battalions to fight ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. It appears that no combination of violent extremists is too wretched to celebrate as long as they’re killing Russ-kies.
The article by Andrew E. Kramer reports that there are now three Islamic battalions “deployed to the hottest zones,” such as around the port city of Mariupol. One of the battalions is headed by a former Chechen warlord who goes by the name “Muslim,” Kramer wrote, adding:
“The Chechen commands the Sheikh Mansur group, named for an 18th-century Chechen resistance figure. It is subordinate to the nationalist Right Sector, a Ukrainian militia. … Right Sector … formed during last year’s street protests in Kiev from a half-dozen fringe Ukrainian nationalist groups like White Hammer and the Trident of Stepan Bandera.
“Another, the Azov group, is openly neo-Nazi, using the ‘Wolf’s Hook’ symbol associated with the [Nazi] SS. Without addressing the issue of the Nazi symbol, the Chechen said he got along well with the nationalists because, like him, they loved their homeland and hated the Russians.”
As casually as Kramer acknowledges the key front-line role of neo-Nazis and white supremacists fighting for the U.S.-backed Kiev regime, his article does mark an aberration for the Times and the rest of the mainstream U.S. news media, which usually dismiss any mention of this Nazi taint as “Russian propaganda.” . . .
. . . . Now, the Kiev regime has added to those “forces of civilization” — resisting the Russ-kie barbarians — Islamic militants with ties to terrorism. Last September, Marcin Mamon, a reporter for the Intercept, reached a vanguard group of these Islamic fighters in Ukraine through the help of his “contact in Turkey with the Islamic State [who] had told me his ‘brothers’ were in Ukraine, and I could trust them.”
The new Times article avoids delving into the terrorist connections of these Islamist fighters. . . .
20. We present more about the Chechen/Islamic State fighters in Ukraine. Note that, as discussed in FTR #830, the Islamic State appears to be another branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Note, also, that Georgia also was harboring Islamist fighters campaigning against Russia. We highlighted this in FTR #710.
The Daily Beast has a new piece on the Chechen Jihadists fighting in Ukraine after fighting for ISIS and how, with talk of making Right Sector part of the SBU, there’s growing speculation that a Chechen ‘volunteer battalion’ is just a matter of time:
“Chechen Jihadists Join Ukraine’s Fighters” by Anna Nemtsova ; The Daily Beast; 9/04/2015.
Chechen Jihadis Leave Syria, Join the Fight in Ukraine
A battalion of fighters from the Caucasus is deployed on Kiev’s side in the Ukraine war. But their presence may do more harm than good.
Just an hour’s drive from this city under siege, at an old resort on the Azov Sea that’s now a military base, militants from Chechnya—veterans of the jihad in their own lands and, more recently, in Syria—now serve in what’s called the Sheikh Mansur Battalion. Some of them say they have trained, at least, in the Middle East with fighters for the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS.
Among the irregular forces who’ve enlisted in the fight against the Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, few are more controversial or more dangerous to the credibility of the cause they say they want to serve. Russian President Vladimir Putin would love to portray the fighters he supports as crusaders against wild-eyed jihadists rather than the government in Ukraine that wants to integrate the country more closely with Western Europe.
Yet many Ukrainian patriots, desperate to gain an edge in the fight against the Russian-backed forces, are willing to accept the Chechen militants on their side.
Over the past year, dozens of Chechen fighters have come across Ukraine’s border, some legally, some illegally, and connected in Donbas with the Right Sector, a far-right-wing militia. The two groups, with two battalions, have little in common, but they share an enemy and they share this base.
The Daily Beast spoke with the Chechen militants about their possible support for the Islamic State and its affiliate in the Northern Caucasus region of Russia, which is now called the Islamic State Caucasus Emirate and is labeled a terrorist organization by both Russia and the United States.
The Chechen fighters said they were motivated by a chance to fight in Ukraine against the Russians, whom they called “occupiers of our country, Ichkeriya,” another term for Chechnya.
Indeed, they were upset that Ukrainian authorities did not allow more Chechen militants to move to Ukraine from the Middle East and the mountains of the Caucasus. The Sheikh Mansur Battalion, founded in Ukraine in October 2014, “needs re-enforcement,” they said.
The man the Chechens defer to as their “emir,” or leader, is called “Muslim,” a common forename in the Caucasus. He talked about how he personally crossed the Ukrainian border last year: “It took me two days to walk across Ukraine’s border, and the Ukrainian border control shot at me,” he said. He lives on this military base here openly enough but is frustrated that more of his recruits can’t get through. “Three of our guys came here from Syria, 15 more are waiting in Turkey,” he told The Daily Beast. “They want to take my path, join our battalion here right now, but the Ukrainian border patrol is not letting them in.”
Muslim pulled out a piece of paper with a name of another Chechen heading to join the battalion. The handwritten note said that Amayev Khavadzhi was detained on September 4, 2014, in Greece and now could be deported to Russia. (Khayadzhi’s lawyer in Greece told The Daily Beast on the phone that there was a chance that his defendant would be transferred to his family in France instead.)
“Two more of our friends have been detained, and are threatened with deportation to Russia, where they get locked up for life or Kadyrov kills them,” Muslim told The Daily Beast, referring to the pro-Putin strongman of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.
The commander pointed at a young bearded militant next to him: “Mansur came here from Syria,” Muslim said. “He used ISIS as a training base to improve his fighting skills.” Mansur stretched out his right hand, which was disfigured, he said, by a bullet wound. Two more bullets were still stuck in his back, he said.
“No photographs,” Mansur shook his head when a journalist tried to take his picture. Not even of his hand, not even from the back: “My religion does not allow that.”
...
Mansur said he did not have to run across the border under a hail of of bullets like Muslim. “We managed to reach an agreement with the Ukrainians,” he said.
The arrival of pro-Ukrainian Chechen fighters from abroad helped relieve some of the immigration problems of Chechens already living in Ukraine, the militants explained.
Kadyrov had sent some of his Chechens to fight on the Russian side of the conflict last year, said Muslim, and as a result “there was a temporary danger that Chechen families might be deported from Ukraine… But as soon as we started coming here last August, no Chechen in Ukraine had reasons to complain.”
Were former fighters coming to Ukraine from Syria because they were disappointed (or appalled) by the ideology of ISIS?
“We have been fighting against Russia for over 400 years; today they [the Russians] blow up and burn our brothers alive, together with children, so here in Ukraine we continue to fight our war,” the commander said. Many in Ukraine remembered the Chechen war of the mid-1990s as a war for independence, which briefly was given, then taken away.
Since then the war in the Caucasus has morphed into terrorism, killing about 1,000 civilians, many of them children, in a series of terror attacks. And whatever the common enemy, that poses a serious problem for Kiev if it embraces such fighters.
“The Ukrainian government should be aware that Islamic radicals fight against democracy,” says Varvara Pakhomenko, an expert at the International Crisis Group. “Today they unite with Ukrainian nationalists against Russians, tomorrow they will be fighting against liberals.”
Pakhomenko says something similar happened in Georgia in 2012 when the government there found itself accused of cooperation with Islamic radicals from Europe, Chechnya, and the Pankisi Gorge, an ethnic Chechen region of Georgia.
For international observers covering terrorism in Russia and Caucasus in the past 15 years, the presence of Islamic radicals in Ukraine sounds “disastrous,” monitors from the International Crisis Group told The Daily Beast.
But many ordinary Ukrainians and officials in Mariupol support the idea of retaining more Chechen militia fighters. “They are fearless fighters, ready to die for us, we love them, anybody who would protect us from death,” said Galina Odnorog, a volunteer supplying equipment, water, food, and other items to battalions told The Daily Beast. The previous night Ukrainian forces reported six dead Ukrainian soldiers and over a dozen wounded.
“ISIS, terrorists—anybody is better than our lame leaders,” says local legislative council deputy Alexander Yaroshenko. “I feel more comfortable around Muslim and his guys than with our mayor or governor.”
The Right Sector battalion that cooperates with the Chechen militants is a law unto itself, often out of control, and tending to incorporate anyone it wants into its ranks. In July two people were killed and eight wounded in a gun and grenade battle between police and Right Sector militia in western Ukraine. On Monday, Right Sector militants triggered street battles in the center of Kiev that left three policemen dead and over 130 wounded.
Yet the government in Kiev has been considering the transfer of the Right Sector into a special unit of the SBU, Ukraine’s security service, which has made many people wonder whether the Chechen militia will be joining the government units as well. So far, neither the Right Sector battalion nor the Chechen battalion have been registered with official forces.
In Ukraine, which is losing dozens of soldiers and civilians every week, many things could spin out of control but “it would be unimaginable to allow former or current ISIS fighters to join any government-controlled or –sponsored military unit,” says Paul Quinn-Judge, senior adviser for International Crisis Group in Russia and Ukraine. “It would be politically disastrous for the Poroshenko administration: No Western government in its right mind would accept this, and it would be an enormous propaganda gift for the Kremlin. The Ukrainian government would be better served by publicizing their decisions to turn ISIS vets back at the border.”
The Ukrainian government should be aware that Islamic radicals fight against democracy,” says Varvara Pakhomenko, an expert at the International Crisis Group. “Today they unite with Ukrainian nationalists against Russians, tomorrow they will be fighting against liberals.”
...
The Right Sector battalion that cooperates with the Chechen militants is a law unto itself, often out of control, and tending to incorporate anyone it wants into its ranks. In July two people were killed and eight wounded in a gun and grenade battle between police and Right Sector militia in western Ukraine. On Monday, Right Sector militants triggered street battles in the center of Kiev that left three policemen dead and over 130 wounded.Yet the government in Kiev has been considering the transfer of the Right Sector into a special unit of the SBU, Ukraine’s security service, which has made many people wonder whether the Chechen militia will be joining the government units as well. So far, neither the Right Sector battalion nor the Chechen battalion have been registered with official forces.
21. The program concludes with Robert Parry’s observations about the dangers of promoting Sunni Islamist fighters in Syria. With recent Russian military moves into Syria, we wonder if this is an attempt by the Kremlin to neutralize Chechen fighters in both the Caucasus and Ukraine.
We note the use by the West and Saudi Arabia of Sunni/Muslim Brotherhood combatants as proxy warriors against Russia and Russian support for Shiite regimes in Iran and Syria as proxy defenses against the West’s combatants.
One should not mistake the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood’s corporatist economic philosophy is well regarded by the transnational corporate community. IF ISIS or the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front come to power in Syria, the flow of refugees will further destabilize Europe, giving a boost the neo-fascist political parties that are making hay from anti-immigrant sentiment. (We discussed this dynamic in FTR #830.)
“Madness of Blockading Syria’s Regime” by Robert Parry; Consortium News; 9/10/2015.
Does the U.S. government want the Islamic State and/or its fellow-travelers in Al Qaeda to take over Syria? As far as the State Department is concerned, that seems to be a risk worth taking as it moves to cut off Russia’s supply pipeline to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad — even as Sunni terrorist groups expand their grip on Syrian territory.
It appears that hardliners within the Obama administration have placed the neocon goal of “regime change” in Syria ahead of the extraordinary dangers that could come from the black flag of Sunni terrorism raised over the capital of Damascus. That would likely be accompanied by the Islamic State chopping off the heads of Christians, Alawites, Shiites and other “heretics” and/or Al Qaeda having a major Mideast capital from which to plot more attacks on the West.
And, as destabilizing as the current flow of Middle East refugees is to Europe, a victory by the Islamic State or Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front would open the flood gates, sending millions of desperate people pouring out of Syria and creating a political as well as humanitarian crisis. At that point, there also would be enormous pressure on President Barack Obama or his successor to mount a full-scale invasion of Syria and attempt a bloody occupation.
The human and financial costs of this nightmare scenario are almost beyond comprehension. The European Union – already strained by mass unemployment in its southern tier — could crack apart, shattering one of the premier achievements of the post-World War II era. The United States also could undergo a final transformation from a Republic into a permanent-warrior state.
Yet, Official Washington can’t seem to stop itself. Instead of working with Russia and Shiite-ruled Iran to help stabilize the political/military situation in Syria, the pundit class and the “tough-guy/gal” politicians are unleashing torrents of insults toward the two countries that would be the West’s natural allies in any effort to prevent a Sunni terrorist takeover.
Beyond words, there has been action. Over the past week, the State Department has pressured Bulgaria and Greece to bar Russian transport flights headed to Syria. The U.S. plan seems to be to blockade the Syrian government and starve it of outside supplies, whether humanitarian or military, all the better to force its collapse and open the Damascus city gates to the Islamic State and/or Al Qaeda.
In explaining its nearly inexplicable behavior, the State Department even has adopted the silly neocon talking point which blames Assad and now Russia for creating the Islamic State, though the bloodthirsty group actually originated as “Al Qaeda in Iraq” in reaction to President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Then, backed by money and weapons from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other U.S. “allies,” AQI moved into Syria with the goal of ousting Assad’s relatively secular government. AQI later took the name Islamic State (also known by the acronyms ISIS, ISIL or Daesh). Yet, the State Department’s official position is that the Islamic State is Assad’s and Russia’s fault.
“What we’ve said is that their [the Russians’] continued support to the Assad regime has actually fostered the growth of ISIL inside Syria and made the situation worse,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday. “If they want to be helpful against ISIL, the way to do it is to stop arming and assisting and supporting Bashar al-Assad.”
Yet, the reality is that Assad’s military has been the principal bulwark against both the Islamic State and the other dominant Sunni rebel force, Al Qaeda’s affiliate, the Nusra Front. So, by moving to shut down Assad’s supply line, the U.S. government is, in effect, clearing the way for an Islamic State/Al Qaeda victory since the U.S.-trained “moderate” rebels are largely a fiction, numbering in double digits, while the extremists have tens of thousands of committed fighters.
In other words, if the U.S. strategy succeeds in collapsing Assad’s defenses, there is really nothing to stop the Sunni terrorists from seizing Damascus and other major cities. Then, U.S. airstrikes on those population centers would surely kill many civilians and further radicalize the Sunnis. To oust the Islamic State and/or Al Qaeda would require a full-scale U.S. invasion, which might be inevitable but would almost certainly fail, much as Bush’s Iraq occupation did. . . .
Banking with Bin Laden
Regarding the potential for the ongoing Middle Eastern refugee crisis to further fuel the European far-right, with Germany and France calling for refugee quota for EU members that could force member states to take in a minimum number of refugees, an obvious question is raised: Is the refugee crisis was going to be considered an “extraordinary event” that would allow nations to temporary suspend the EU’s austerity-fetish and budget constraints while Europe absorbs hundreds of thousands of desperate people to ensure that this vital task doesn’t turn into an endless source of propaganda for Europe’s xenophobes who will be able to claim that the refugees on causing even more austerity than before? Well, if Berlin gets its way, no, there will be no suspension of the austerity madness and we should all stop asking. Wolfgang Schaeuble finds such pestering questions “almost boring”:
Sorry everyone.
Germany just made a surprise move in its refugee policies and suddenly closed its border with Austria. This, in turn, caused Austria to announce it would toughen its own border controls and deploying soldiers on its border with Hungary. And in both cases it was a violation of the Schengen agreement. So that was rather ominous
Well, so long Schengen treaty! This is, of course, a temporary measure. But it’s also a highly unusual measure and one that raises a number of question, the most obvious question being, “will Schengen survive?”:
“Could Germany’s temporary suspension of Schengen be the beginning of the treaty’s death rattle?”
That’s going to be an increasingly relevant question until this issue gets resolved. And it’s not at all clear how it’s going to get resolved when, as the article points out, just a few mild tweaks to the Schengen treaty could how a dominoe effect:
And if there’s one thing we’ve learned in recent years about how the EU and eurozone functions, it’s that radical sudden changes to the system are very much a possibility. Whether it’s a Fiscal Compact treaty or the new banking union, big changes with major long-term repercussions can indeed happen when there’s a crisis in the new Europe...assuming the dominant powers want to see those reforms and enough of the second-tier governments are interested in following suit. So if there’s going to be any changes to the Schengen treaty it seems like now, when there’s an urgent crisis, would be the time we would expect to see those changes.
At the same time, as the article below points out, one of the new EU goals is to figure out a system for redistributing 160,000 refugees from Greece, Italy, and Hungary across the EU, so if there are any Schengen treaty changes coming up, they’re presumably going to mostly involve new restrictions in exchange for taking in a refugees because a lot of countries aren’t very happy about the “share the refugees” idea
“The EU wants to resettle 160,000 people across 22 member states to relieve pressure on Greece and Italy, but there is fierce opposition to the proposal from countries in central Europe, led by Hungary. Budapest wants the EU to take a much tougher line on keeping the migrants out by securing the bloc’s borders.”
So it sounds like the emerging debate or the refugee crisis response will involve calls for greater external EU border controls and possible new restrictions on the Schengen treaty in exchange for a collective refugee response. Whether or not that’s going to involve some sort of collective action in securing the EU’s external borders remains to be seen, but given the costs incurred by countries like Greece and Italy in dramatically increasing their border patrols, the question of whether or not countries will share in the cost of external EU boarder patrols is probably going to come up...a lot:
“Greece must take responsibility for the protection of the EU’s external borders, which are currently not secure.”
So says Angela Merkel. Good luck Schengen treaty.
Serbia expressed its ‘harshest possible protest’ against Hungary today. With good reason:
Note that this isn’t the first time Hungarian police have fired tear gas as refugees in recent weeks.
Also note that many refugees are now making their way into the EU via Croatia and while the Croatian government is certainly more welcoming and humane towards the refugees than its Hungarian counterpart, not all parts of Croatia are so welcoming. Specifically, the many unmarked mine fields left over from Croatia’s civil war are definitely not very welcoming.
A frequent observation of the current European refugee crisis is that a large number of the refugees are single young men. This is often being used as a reason to be extra wary of the refugees and followed with calls for sending them back to fight. Presumably they’re expected to fight both ISIS and Assad. But as the article below points out, in addition to over half of Syria’s refugees globally being children, the unusually high number of young men in this current wave of refugees is do to the fact that ISIS and Assad are actively trying to recruit or conscript them:
There’s nothing that drives a mass exodus quite like aggressive conscription and recruitment drives by ISIS and Assad:
Of course, as the article below points out, another key reason for the large numbers of young men among this latest wave of refugees is due to the fact that it’s an incredibly dangerous journey and, as such, a number of families are sending the fathers on the quest for a safe haven before the rest of the family joins them. It just makes sense unless you want more children drowning and dodging land mines.
So there’s probably going to be quite a few more waves of refugees flowing out of Syria and they’re probably going to be making their way to Europe because, as the article below also points out, the existing aid effort has failed to provide anything more than basic subsistence to the refugees who have already fled the conflict into Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq and it is unrealistic and inhumane to expect them to put their lives on hold in a war zone or dysfunctional refugee camp indefinitely:
“I would have had to serve the regime and participate in killing civilians...Most Syrians are now convinced the war is pointless. We don’t know who is winning, and they are all just killing each other.”
That sense of despair in the face of a “kill or be killed” reality is something that’s going to be increasingly important to keep in mind.