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This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: In recent years, we have noted growing confluence between Muslim Brotherhood-based Islamism and Pan-Turkist elements. As events in Ukraine, the Middle East and Asia continue to heat up, the Islamist/Pan-Turkist connection appears to be solidifying. The “cement” that is bringing them together appears to be elements of Western intelligence, the Underground Reich/transnational corporate faction of the CIA in particular.
This analysis is presented in conjunction with, and against the background of, the Earth Island or World Island as it is sometimes known.
Stretching from the Straits of Gibraltar, all across Europe, most of the Middle East, Eurasia, Russia, China and India, that stretch of land: comprises most of the world’s land mass; contains most of the world’s population and most of the world’s natural resources (including oil and natural gas.) Geopoliticians have long seen controlling that land mass as the key to world domination. The population that occupies the middle of that stretch of geography is largely Muslim.
Utilizing that Muslim population to control the resources of the Earth Island is a stratagem that has been in effect in the West for a century.
In Syria, the downing of a Russian fighter conducting operations against Turkmen militia pulled back the curtain on Pan-Turkist Grey Wolf elements that constitute part of the so-called “moderate” rebel forces being armed by the West–Turkey and the Underground Reich facgtion of CIA in particular. The militia who killed the Russian pilot of the SU-24 are Grey Wolves.
Grey Wolf elements have also been active in support of the Muslim, Turkophone Uighurs in fossil-fuel-rich Xinjiang Province in China. After Thailand extradited Uighurs to China to face criminal charges, Grey Wolves demonstrated against China in Turkey and apparently detonated a bomb in Thailand, targeting Chinese tourists.
In the European portion of the Earth Island, Crimean Tatars are supported by Tayyip Erdogan, who has been attempting to realize a neo-Ottoman agenda. Now, the Crimean Tatars are working with the OUN/B heirs in Pravy Sektor to sabotage the Crimean power grid. (The head of the Ukrainian intelligence service for most of the post-Maidan period was Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, joined at the hip with Pravy Sektor.)
The apparent sabotage of the Crimean electrical grid comes on the heels of Tatar/Pravy Sektor collaboration in blocking overland truck deliveries to Crimea, as well as the Crimean water supply.
Much of the program consists of an excerpt from AFA #14 (recorded in January of 1986), reviewing the history of the Pan-Turkist movement. Allied with Nazi Germany in World War II and fascist in nature, the pan-Turkists had long sought to carve up the Soviet Union and restore the Ottomon Empire.
A major focal point of the discussion is the Promethean League. An anti-Soviet network similar to the World Anti-Communist League, the Promethean League was established between the world wars. Subsidized by Marshall Pilsudski’s Polish intelligence apparatus, the group was physically based in Poland, but heavily supported by French intelligence and ideologists based in France. Featuring Pan-Turkist and Ukrainian elements, many of the Promethean League groups jumped first to the Third Reich and later to elements of Western intelligence and allied organizations.
Program Highlights Include:
- National Action Party founder Alparslan Turkes’ agitation for Turkey’s entry into World War II on the side of the Axis.
- Turkes’ role as a key Turkish liaison officer with NATO.
- Review of Chechen Islamists’ combat role in Ukraine.
- Review of the Chechen fighters’ command association with Pravy Sektor, and their links with Turkey and the fighting in Syria.
- Discussion of Grey Wolf activity in Chechnya.
- The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood’s role in administering CIA aid to the so-called “moderate” rebels in Syria.
- Hizb ut-Tahrir’s connections to Crimean Tatar combatants in Syria.
- The Ukrainian government’s support for the Crimean Tatar/Pravy Sektor actions against Crimea.
It should also be noted that Turkey is now prosecuting two investigative reporters who wrote of Turkish government support for Syrian rebels. Reuters had previously noted the accuracy of the dynamic of which the Turkish reporters had written.
The photos of Alparslan Celik, a Syrian rebel leader from Turkey, are being widely shared on social media after he appeared in a video boasting of how he and his men shot the Russian pilot while he parachuted out from his plane on 24 November.
Alparslan Celik is the leader of the Syrian Turkmen brigade, which is supported by Turkey and he shot into the international limelight after he appeared in a video detailing the killing of the Russian pilot.
He even showed-off some of the belongings taken from the Russian pilot, Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Peshkov.A graphic video posted online shows a gang member of Celik’s group standing over the body of the dead Russian pilot, with his foot over the chest of Lieutenant-Colonel Oleg Peshkov.
It is now being reported that Celik is a Turkish national and his father was the mayor of Keban municipality in Turkey’s Elazig province.
Celik, who has earlier appeared in numerous propaganda videos of his group, is also the member of The Grey Wolves, which is an ultranationalist group that has carried out several political assassinations.
1b. The evidence that CIA is aiding the so-called “moderate” rebels in Syria, and by extension, ISIS, is strong. They are working with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in that capacity.
A small number of C.I.A. officers are operating secretly in southern Turkey, helping allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive arms to fight the Syrian government, according to American officials and Arab intelligence officers.
The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, ammunition and some antitank weapons, are being funneled mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the officials said. . . .
1c. Once again, we visit the subject of the Earth Island or “World Island” as it is sometimes called. Stretching from the Straits of Gibraltar, all across Europe, most of the Middle East, Eurasia, Russia, China and India, that stretch of land: comprises most of the world’s land mass; contains most of the world’s population and most of the world’s natural resources (including oil and natural gas.) Geopoliticians have long seen controlling that land mass as the key to world domination. The population that occupies the middle of that stretch of geography is largely Muslim.
Utilizing that Muslim population to control the resources of the Earth Island is a strategem that has been in effect in the West for a century.
Now, we are seeing the Uighurs, a Turkophone, Muslim group in the petroleum and natural-resources-rich Xinjiang province of China, receiving support from the Pan-Turkist/fascist National Action Party and its youth wing, the Grey Wolves.
As Russia is being boxed in by renascent Ukrainian fascism in the East and Caucasian Islamist terror in the Caucasus, we must wonder if the NAP/Grey Wolf PR offensive against China and on behalf of the Uighurs is part of an ongoing NATO/U.S./Underground Reich effort against the core of the Earth Island, Russia and China.
Are we seeing an effort at breaking those countries apart? Are the Islamist and Pan-Turkist movements aligning in furthering this goal?
Protests. Burnt flags. Attacks on tourists and restaurants. Rampant racism on social media.
Anti-China sentiment has been reaching new heights in Turkey over the last few weeks, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to make an official state visit to China later this month.
It started at the beginning of July, when a Chinese restaurant in Istanbul was attacked by five men with sticks and stones.
“We do not want a Chinese restaurant here, get out of our town!” the men were heard saying, according to Al-Monitor.
A few days later, a Korean tourist mistaken to be Chinese was attacked by a group of ultra-nationalists in the capital. On the same day in Balikesir, protesters hung an effigy of Mao Zedong. And a few days later, the protests spread again to Istanbul, where Chinese tourists were attacked and harassed, according to CNN.
The protests gathered momentum a few weeks ago, when reports emerged that Uighurs — who share ethnicity and have close cultural ties with Turkish Muslims — who were living in western regions of China had allegedly not been allowed to fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Those allegations have been denied by the Chinese government. Uighurs make up around 45% of the Xinjiang autonomous region of China.
On July 9, a group of about 200 men who are believed to be part of the East Turkestan Solidarity Group attacked the Thai embassy in Istanbul with rocks and wooden planks. The attack followed the repatriation of over 100 Uighurs back to China by the Thai government.
In a recent interview, Devlety Bahceli, chairman of the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) in Turkey, whose members have been accused of assaulting tourists, said they are “sensitive to injustices in China.”
“Our nationalist youth is sensitive to injustices in China. They should have the freedom to exercise their democratic rights. These are young kids. They may have been provoked. Plus, how are you going to differentiate between Korean and Chinese? They both have slanted eyes. Does it really matter?” he said, according to Al-Monitor.
Those racist comments caused uproar in national and international media. And following growing social pressure, Nationalist Action Party members told Al-Monitor that they view all tourists as their guests. The head of the Grey Wolves, the youth wing of the MHP in Istanbul, told the BBC that the attacks took place between protesters and the police — and that no tourists were harmed.
“The safety of every tourist coming to our country is our responsibility. We can’t tolerate any sort of violence,” he said.
Amid the multiplying attacks, the Chinese embassy issued a travel warning to its citizens and told them to avoid going out alone, getting close to protests, or taking pictures of them. The Chinese Philharmonic Orchestra also canceled its August concert in Istanbul, and local police announced it would provide extra security for an exhibition by a Chinese artist. . . . .
1c. The Grey Wolves and Pan-Turkists appear to be active in Asia, perpetrating terrorist bombings against those sympathetic to China’s efforts against the Uighurs.
Neo-fascists from a Turkish terrorist group called Grey Wolves have emerged as key suspects in the Bangkok bombing after the arrest of a man, believed to be Turkish, in the Thai capital with bomb-making material.
The group’s death squads have stalked Turkey since the 1960s, murdering left-wing and liberal activists, university students and journalists and engaging in street battles and attacks.
They gained international notoriety in 1981 when Mehmet Ali Agca, one of their collaborators, shot and nearly killed Pope John Paul II in St Peter’s Square.
The Grey Wolves are known for their distinct hand sign, which represents a wolf head, made by holding up a forefinger and little finger.
The group’s ideology centres on the glory days of Turkish history, seeking to unite Muslim Turkic peoples from the Balkans to Central Asia in a pan-Turkish extension of the Turkish nation-state.
The group extended operations in the early 1990s into post-Soviet states with Turkic and Muslim populations, including the Nagorno-Karabakh War in Azerbaijan and Chechen conflicts.
The group is believed to have ties to Turkish crime gangs that operate in Bangkok that could have provided logistical support for their attack, security analysts say.
Thai police have been searching for Turkish nationals who arrived in Thailand in the 15 days before a blast tore through foreign tourists and Thais at the Erawan Shrine on August 17, killing 20 people and injuring more than 120 in an unprecedented attack.
But their breakthrough in the investigation came when residents of a predominantly Muslim district of Bangkok on Saturday reported to police the suspicious activities of a non-Thai speaking man renting five rooms in a seedy, four-story apartment block.
After more than 100 police surrounded the building, they found a man believed to be 28 in a room with a stack of false passports and bomb-making equipment similar to that used in the shrine bombing, including ball bearings, pipes and fuses.
The bearded man with short cropped hair has been charged with possession of bomb-making material and is being held in a Thai military base pending further investigation.
Anthony Davis, a respected Bangkok-based security analyst with IHS-Jane’s, said last week the Grey Wolves were likely to be behind the bombing because they had both motive and capability, although he did not rule out other possibilities.
“They are violent and operate below the radar,” he said.
Mr Davis said the group had “latched on to in a big way” Uighur Muslims in western China who claim they have suffered years of persecution from Beijing.
Thailand infuriated the Uighur movement in July when the country deported to China 109 Uighur men who had been separated from their wives and children.
Ethnic Chinese tourists appear to have been targets of the shrine bombers.
Mr Davis described the Bangkok attack as potentially the nightmare that has worried security agencies, a link-up between terrorism and organised crime.
2a. The Ukrainian government appears to have tacitly supported the sabotage of the Crimean power grid.
Five days after saboteurs blew up power lines in southern Ukraine plunging Russian-annexed Crimea into an energy crisis, all four damaged pylons are out of action and engineers say they need a political decision to restore supplies.
The stalemate has left some 2 million Crimeans reliant upon emergency generators and has caused severe disruption, exposing how dependent Crimea remains on Ukraine a year and a half after it broke away to join Russia.
Some limited repair work has taken place, say Ukrainian government and energy officials, who have spoken of how the problem could — technically — be fixed relatively swiftly.
But on Friday the damaged pylons lay flat in thick mud as the wind whipped across the flat featureless landscape.
“If our high-level leadership takes a political decision to restore power or not to do so — and there is no such decision — we will do everything really quickly,” said Ihor Bosko, a regional energy official. “We are sitting and waiting.”
So far, ethnic Tatar activists and Ukrainian nationalists have blocked repair teams. The authorities have let the activists remain in place and protesters say they won’t budge until Russia meets a series of political demands.
Tatars, a Muslim people with a long history of habitation in Crimea, accuse the peninsula’s new Kremlin-backed authorities of oppressing them, allegations officials deny.
A Reuters reporter saw three Ukrainian tanks and two armored personnel carriers headed to the border with Crimea on Friday afternoon, but it was unclear what their purpose was.
Russia, which has accused Ukraine of “torturing” Crimeans with the power cuts, has responded by cutting coal deliveries to Ukraine.
A Ukrainian lawmaker close to the circle of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk on Tuesday said the Crimean blackout had been orchestrated with the tacit consent of Kiev.
It was, he said, meant as a political signal to Moscow. . . .
2b. Pravy Sektor appears to be working with the Crimean Tatars in their terrorist activities against Crimea.
Crimean Tatar activists and Ukrainian nationalists on Monday prevented repair crews from restoring the main power lines in southern Ukraine that supply Crimea, leaving the disputed peninsula in the dark and Ukraine and Russia headed toward a standoff over the issue. . . . .
. . . . The leadership of both the Crimean Tatars, forced into exile by Russia, and a right-wing nationalist group, Right Sector, endorsed the destruction without claiming responsibility. . . .
2c. More about the Pravy Sektor/Crimean Tatar cooperation against Crimea:
“The Siege of Crimea (I);” german-foreign-policy.com; 11/26/2015.
Berlin is watching with apprehension as the conflict between Kiev and Moscow escalates again following Ukraine’s shutting down electrical power to Crimea. Last week, Crimean Tatars and members of the fascist Right Sector are suspected to have blown up several electric pylons, cutting off the supply of power to Crimea. Crimea receives nearly 80 percent of its electricity from Ukraine. The Berlin-sponsored Ukrainian government sees itself as incapable of repairing the power lines. It has imposed — in accordance with the embargo policies of the EU and the USA — its own trade embargo on the peninsula. In the summer 2014, the EU and the USA began imposing economic sanctions on Crimea, which was aggravated by Kiev’s embargo of water and blockade of traffic for over a year. Ukraine will squander its remaining sympathy on the peninsula, warn observers. A similar development had been observed in the Georgian secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia since the 2008 Georgian-Russian war. Early this week, the German government applied pressure on Kiev to restore electricity to Crimea, to avoid another escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which Germany considers detrimental. To no avail — the escalation began yesterday.
One of the Toughest Embargos in the World
Even before the current energy blockade, sanctions imposed by the EU, the USA and Ukraine were already seriously affecting Crimea, particularly the economic sanctions, more than those targeting individuals. The import into the EU of goods produced in Crimea has been prohibited since last summer; since December 2014 — investment on the peninsula. For EU-based companies even the purchase of real estate is forbidden. Export of energy products — including oil and natural gas — as well as goods from the transportation and telecommunication sectors are not allowed. Even service for Crimean tourism is no longer permitted to be offered within the EU. The United States has imposed similar sanctions. Last summer, Thomas De Waal, an expert at the USA’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, assessed that this is “one of the toughest embargos in the world.” De Waal has characterized this as the “Siege of Crimea.”[1]
Turn off the Water
Since last year, the pro-western Ukraine’s embargo has been causing additional severe problems in Crimea; one example being an embargo on water for the peninsula. As a report in “Ukraine-Analysen,” published by the University of Bremen has confirmed, before secession, the peninsula had received “up to 85 percent of its water supply from the Ukrainian mainland.” In May 2014, Kiev turned off the water supply — with dramatic consequences. Agriculture, in particular, was severely affected, reported “Ukraine-Analysen.” For example, cultivation of corn and soya had to be “drastically reduced,” and rice had to be abandoned entirely. “Providing drinking water to the major industrial cities” such as Kerch and Feodosia “was a major problem,” the report continues. According to official data, “consumption of water has fallen by 20 percent over the past two years.”[2]
Cut Off From the Mainland
The numerous blockades of transportation and traffic also have an exceedingly damaging effect. The Ukrainian railroad has ceased service to the peninsula, with no railway access yet to Russia. “Ferry service across the Straits of Kerch” is, for the time being, “the only larger transportation link to the Russian mainland,” notes the “Ukraine-Analysen.” However, the ferry connection is overburdened and interrupted in bad weather. Moscow seeks to solve the problem with the construction of a railway/automobile bridge across the Straits of Kerch. Construction has begun and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018 [3] — three long years. Because of the difficult accessibility, the import of food from Russia is insufficient to satisfy the needs of the Crimean population.[4] “Ukraine-Analysen” reports that due to the insufficiency of overland connections, “the air traffic to Crimea has significantly increased.” “It has tripled since 2013.” Only Russian airliners land in Crimea — under high penalty fines — because Crimea’s integration into Russia has not been recognized internationally, Crimean airspace is still attributed to Ukraine.[5]
Backfire
Experts, like Carnegie Endowment’s Thomas De Waal have been warning for quite a while that the tough sanctions regime may, in the long run, backfire against the West and its allies in Kiev. For the time being, Kiev still has access to “resources of loyalty” in the Crimea, De Waal quoted the journalist Andrej Sambros, who reports from Crimea for liberal Russian journals, last July. For example, out of the two million people in Crimea, only 20,000 have renounced their Ukrainian citizenship, suggesting that most people want to keep their options open. However, because of the ongoing sanctions, locals now pin their hopes on Moscow, De Waal reports. The sanctions strategy are reminiscent of the methods applied by Georgia towards their separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. After the August 2008 Georgian-Russian War, Mikheil Saakashvili, then the Georgian president, instituted tough laws on “occupied territories.” In South Ossetia in 2008, the Saakashvili government cut the gas supply to the Georgian-majority town of Akhalgori, in the hopes of provoking anti-Russian upheavals. The contrary was the case. Following several freezing winters, the population complained of “Georgian cruelty.” Abkhazia also suffered years of economic misery but now has few connections with Georgia and has undergone a slow integration into the Russian economy. De Waal reported that one Crimean Tatar bitterly complained that “we are losing Crimea because of this policy”[6] referring to the embargo imposed by Kiev and the West.
No Electricity
The most recent escalation is spiraling the process even further. Crimean Tatars have been blocking overland access to Crimea with the help of fascist Right Sector militants, already since the end of September, to prevent deliveries from Ukraine from reaching the peninsula. Kiev has turned a blind eye. Late last week, it is suspected that Crimean Tatars blew up several electric pylons, cutting off the 80 percent of Crimea’s Ukrainian electrical supply, as had been done earlier with Crimea’s water supply. Ukraine’s Minister of Energy declared that the electrical lines would be restored, but this requires access to the destroyed pylons.[7] Crimean Tatars and fascists of the Right Sector are blocking access to the scenes of the attacks. The Berlin-sponsored government in Kiev has no intention of forcing the repairs. Instead, it has ordered a halt also to commerce in merchandise with Crimea. Russia has declared a state of emergency and is rushing to lay a submarine cable through the Straits of Kerch, which however will not be completed before the end of the year. The majority of the population will have to brave the Crimean winter without lights and warmth until then.[8]
Criminal Acts
The German government, which had helped instigate the sanctions strategy through the imposition of EU sanctions, is now watching these developments with apprehension. Martin Schäfer, the spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry, characterized the sabotage of the electrical pylons as a “criminal act.” “We are expecting these incidents to be handled as such” and “that the supply of electricity in and to Crimea will be restored,” he said at the Federal Press Conference. Berlin would like to get the Ukraine conflict finally under control. The objective is to prevent an EU-endangering resurgence of the civil war, render German business relations with Russia possible again — and, along the way, become Europe’s number one regulatory force. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[9]) However, Kiev — in the process of becoming more radicalized — refuses to heed Berlin’s admonitions, balks at re-establishing the supply of electricity. Rather than react to Russia’s call to pay its gas bills or have its gas supply cut off, Ukraine has declared it was closing its air space to Russian flights. Escalation spirals further.
The Crimean Tatars, implicated in blowing up the electric pylons, are playing an important role in the escalation strategy against Crimea. german-foreign-policy.com will continue with a report on the Crimean Tatars.
For more information on this topic see: Moving West and Steinmeier and the Oligarchs.
[1] Thomas De Waal: The New Siege of Crimea. nationalinterest.org 09.07.2015.
[2], [3] Julia Kusznir: Russische Wirtschaftsförderung für die Krim — eine Zwischenbilanz. In: Ukraine-Analysen Nr. 158, 28.10.2015, 2–5.
[4] Katerina Bosko: “Es geht ums Geschäft”: Die Krim-Blockade und die Realität der Wirtschaftsbeziehungen mit der Krim nach eineinhalb Jahren Annexion. In: Ukraine-Analysen Nr. 158, 28.10.2015, 5–9.
[5] Julia Kusznir: Russische Wirtschaftsförderung für die Krim — eine Zwischenbilanz. In: Ukraine-Analysen Nr. 158, 28.10.2015, 2–5.
[6] Thomas De Waal: The New Siege of Crimea. nationalinterest.org 09.07.2015.
[7] Friedrich Schmidt: Halbinsel im Dunkeln, aber unter Strom. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 25.11.2015.
[8] Axel Eichholz: Krim bleibt dunkel. www.neues-deutschland.de 24.11.2015.
[9] See Kontrollmission in Kiew and Like in the Cold War.
2c. 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. . . .
2e. 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. . . .
3. In the past, we have noted that the supposedly “moderate” Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan isn’t “moderate” at all. Descended from the Al-Taqwa/Muslim Brotherhood milieu, it is both Islamist and Pan-Turkist in its outlook. Erdogan and his foreign minister have been posturing in defense of the Crimean Tatars and–doing something he has become known for–conjuring the Ottoman Empire in their political pronouncements.
“Turkey Moves to Protect Crimea’s Tatar Minority”; Middle East Online; 3/13/2014.
Turkey, which has kept a low profile in the Ukraine crisis, is making moves to protect Crimea’s ethnic Tatar minority as the region prepares for a referendum on joining Russia this week.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to support Crimea’s Turkish-speaking Tatar minority, which Ankara fears could be sidelined in a March 16 vote on switching over to Kremlin rule.
“Turkey has never left Crimean Tatars alone and will never do so,” he said, after a phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed to protect the “rights of our kinsmen” after meeting with Ukrainian officials and representatives of the Tatar community during an unscheduled visit to Kiev earlier this month. . . .
4. Of considerable importance in the context of the Crimean Tatar population of the Ukraine is the fact that Hizb ut-Tahrir has a cadre in that historically peaceful and ecumenical population group. Hizb ut-Tahrir is both Islamist and associated with Pan-Turkism. The group has networked with the NPD, the top German neo-Nazi party.
“Crimean Tatars on Guard Against Joining Russia” by Noah Sneider; The New York Times; 3/14/2014.
. . . . While the Tatars have a history of peaceful resistance, the potential for radicalization does exist. Tatar militants have fought alongside the opposition in Syria, and Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group banned in several countries including Russia, has 1,000 members in Crimea, according to Fazil Amzayev, a spokesman for the group’s local chapter. . . .
5. One of the elements looming large in the Ukrainian crisis is the pan-Turkist movement. Allied with Nazi Germany in World War II and fascist in nature, the pan-Turkists had long sought to carve up the Soviet Union and restore the Ottomon Empire. The program devotes considerable time to an excerpt from AFA #14 (recorded in January of 1986.)
A major focal point of the discussion is the Promethean League. An anti-Soviet network similar to the World Anti-Communist League, the Promethean League was established between the world wars. Subsidized by Marshall Pilsudski’s Polish intelligence apparatus, the group was physically based in Poland, but heavily supported by French intelligence and ideologists based in France. Featuring Pan-Turkist and Ukrainian elements, many of the Promethean League groups jumped first to the Third Reich and later to elements of Western intelligence and allied organizations.
We note that Alparslan Turkes was a key Turkish liaison officer with NATO.
Well, the power lines flowing from Ukraine to Crimea have been repaired, although it “is also not a coincidence that it happened just a few days after Russia launched its own power supply to the peninsula”:
“The Ukrainian government had been coy about the blockade, neither openly endorsing it nor dispersing the activists in order to repair the power lines.”
Erdogan appears to be in an unusually conciliatory mood lately: In addition to normalizing relations with Israel after a six year split, Turkey’s government issue an apology for shooting down one of Russia’s planes last year, claiming it was all unintentional. Adding to the apology, a regional Turkish prosecutor announced that he would prosecute Alparslan Çelik for the death of the Russian pilot:
“The Kremlin has insisted on a personal apology for months, as well as the prosecution of the alleged killer of the pilot. In another concession Monday, a regional Turkish prosecutor announced that he would prosecute Alparslan Çelik, a Turkish national fighting alongside Syrian rebels, for the death of the Russian pilot.”
That is indeed a notable concession, assuming the prosecution doesn’t fizzle. He must be channeling his inner-Sméagol. Let’s hope it takes less than a major international military incident to bring out Erdogan’s Sméagol-side in the future. Turkey needs to see more Sméagol. A lot more.
Daily Mail UK, July 1, 2016 Headlines:
Two of the Istanbul terrorists ‘had Russian passports’ and were planning to take ‘dozens’ of hostages during airport massacre
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3670219/Two-Istanbul-terrorists-Russian-passports-planning-dozens-hostages-airport-massacre.html#ixzz4DManDh7F
Excerpts
Earlier reports terrorists from the Russian region of Dagestan, as well as the ex-Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Some sources call Vadim Osmanov a Chechen, some — a Dagestani.
It is thought the mastermind behind the attacks could be a Chechen warlord, Akhmed Chatayev.
Chatayev — nicknamed ‘One-arm’ — allegedly organised two deadly bombings this year in the heart of the city’s Sultanahmet tourist district and the busy Istiklal shopping street, the Hurriyet newspaper said.
People from Dagestan, Chechnya and Azerbaijan are among those arrested by Turkish police since Tuesday evening, with the authorities apparently hoping to deport a number in the coming weeks.
One of detainees is Tagir Minibayev, from Bashkiria, in Russia, who is an activist for Hizb ut-Tahrir, a party banned in his home country. His family and him got political refuge in Turkey a few years ago.
Could the terrorist attack on the airport in Turkey
attack be related to Turkey Apologizing to Russia and normalizing relations with Israel. One MSNBC interviewee said no, it would take to long to plan in advance. But, this does not address the possibility that this incident was planned so that an attack could be orchestrated on short notice to address a political issue that the terrorist organization did not approve of.
Daily Mail UK, July 1, 2016 Headlines:
Two of the Istanbul terrorists ‘had Russian passports’ and were planning to take ‘dozens’ of hostages during airport massacre
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3670219/Two-Istanbul-terrorists-Russian-passports-planning-dozens-hostages-airport-massacre.html#ixzz4DManDh7F
Excerpts
Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry claimed ‘the Turkish authorities have established the identities of two terrorists’ and named them as Rakim Bulgarov and Vadim Osmanov.
Both held Russian passports, they claimed.
Earlier reports terrorists from the Russian region of Dagestan, as well as the ex-Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Some sources call Vadim Osmanov a Chechen, some – a Dagestani.
It is thought the mastermind behind the attacks could be a Chechen warlord, Akhmed Chatayev.
Chatayev – nicknamed ‘One-arm’ – allegedly organised two deadly bombings this year in the heart of the city’s Sultanahmet tourist district and the busy Istiklal shopping street, the Hurriyet newspaper said.
People from Dagestan, Chechnya and Azerbaijan are among those arrested by Turkish police since Tuesday evening, with the authorities apparently hoping to deport a number in the coming weeks.
One of detainees is Tagir Minibayev, from Bashkiria, in Russia, who is an activist for Hizb ut-Tahrir, a party banned in his home country. His family and him got political refuge in Turkey a few years ago.
Within the Uighur population there are anti-Chinese militants. One even was involved in the Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, which killed 44 people last June, 2016 was said to be from Kyrgyzstan.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37217712
Chinese embassy blast: Car bomb attack in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan — BBC 30 August 2016
A car driven by a suicide bomber has exploded after ramming the gates of the Chinese embassy in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, officials say.
The suicide bomber died and three embassy employees, all Kyrgyz nationals, were injured, Deputy PM Zhenish Razakov said.
China’s foreign ministry condemned the bombing as an “extreme and violent attack”.
No-one has yet said they were behind the suicide bombing.
Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: “China is appalled and strongly condemns the violent act.”
She said China had “demanded that Kyrgyz authorities take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of Chinese institutions and personnel in Kyrgyzstan, launch a thorough investigation to find out the truth of the incident and harshly punish the perpetrators”.
The vehicle reportedly smashed through the gates and exploded in the centre of the compound, close to the ambassador’s residence.
Social media footage showed smoke billowing above the building.
“As a result of the explosion, only the suicide bomber terrorist died,” Mr Razakov told journalists.
The three injured people were reportedly two 17-year-old embassy gardeners and an unidentified woman.
The chief of security at the Chinese embassy told the local AKIpress news agency that no Chinese were hurt.
As well as Chinese embassy employees, staff at the American embassy nearby were evacuated.
Kyrgyz security officials are at the scene conducting an investigation into the blast, which came a day before the nation marks its Independence Day.
Kyrgyz authorities conducted several anti-terrorism operations in Bishkek in 2015.
Officials say that some 500 Kyrgyz nationals are believed to have joined so-called Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
One of the three men who carried out an attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk airport in June was said to be from Kyrgyzstan. The suicide gun and bomb attack, which Turkey blamed on IS jihadists, left 44 people dead and 240 injured.
Chinese have been targeted in Kyrgyzstan in the past, including in 2000 when one official was shot dead in an attack blamed on Uighurs, who form a restive population of China’s western Xinjiang province.
Kyrgyz border guards killed 11 people believed to be members of a Uighur anti-Chinese militant group after they were said to have illegally crossed the border in 2014.
In its travel advice to Kyrgyzstan, the UK government warns of an underlying threat from terrorism.
It says there has been some terrorist activity and armed violence, particularly south and west of the city of Osh.
Here is a highlight of the January 5, 2017 BBC News Article “Turkey nightclub attack: Police ‘detain several Uighurs’ in raids”
Some Uighurs have complained for years about persecution at the hands of the Chinese authorities. Al-Qaeda has long-developed links with Uighur jihadists — known as the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) — and has offered them military training in Afghanistan.
Uighur jihadists appear to have joined the fighting in Syria in relatively large numbers, alongside both Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS, formerly al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch al-Nusra) and al-Qaeda’s rivals, the so-called Islamic State (IS).
They have featured prominently in IS propaganda.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-38517847
Turkey nightclub attack: Police ‘detain several Uighurs’ in raids BBC News, 5 January 2017
Turkey has arrested a number of people of Uighur ethnicity over a deadly nightclub attack that killed 39, the state-run news agency reports.
Those detained are believed to have come from China’s Xinjiang region with ties to the attacker, Anadolu says.
Deputy PM Veysi Kaynak also said they were closing in on the gunman, who he said was possibly an ethnic Uighur.
Also on Thursday, there was an explosion near the courthouse in the city of Izmir in western Turkey.
Social media images showed two cars ablaze and several people were reported wounded.
Other images showed what appeared to be the body of a man carrying a gun, amid media reports he was an attacker who was shot dead by police.
Anadolu reported a second man was shot dead and police were seeking a third.
‘Aiding and abetting’
So-called Islamic State (IS) says it carried out the Istanbul attack over Turkey’s military involvement in the Syrian civil war.
The authorities have reportedly tightened security at Turkey’s land borders and airports to prevent the attacker from fleeing the country.
Turkish media have run images of a suspect, saying the pictures were handed out by the police. But the police have given no official details.
The Turkish foreign minister has said the authorities have identified the attacker, but has not given further details.
Police special forces patrol outside the Reina nightclub which was attacked by a gunman, in Istanbul, Turkey, on 3 January
Turkey has heightened security across the country, including at land borders and airports
Special forces made the early morning arrests at a housing complex in Selimpasa, a coastal town on the outskirts of Istanbul, after police were reportedly tipped off that individuals linked to the attacker were in the area.
Uighurs were among those arrested — the number was not confirmed — on suspicion of “aiding and abetting” the gunman, Anadolu reported.
At least 36 people were already in custody over suspected links to the attack, many of whom were picked up in an earlier police operation in Izmir.
Several families had recently travelled there from Konya, a central city where the main suspect was said to have stayed for several weeks before the attack.
Who are the Uighurs? BBC Monitoring
The Uighurs are a Turkic ethnic group who are mainly Muslims, primarily living in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China. Their language is related to Turkish and a substantial Uighur diaspora lives in Turkey.
Some Uighurs have complained for years about persecution at the hands of the Chinese authorities. Al-Qaeda has long-developed links with Uighur jihadists — known as the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) — and has offered them military training in Afghanistan.
Uighur jihadists appear to have joined the fighting in Syria in relatively large numbers, alongside both Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS, formerly al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch al-Nusra) and al-Qaeda’s rivals, the so-called Islamic State (IS).
They have featured in IS propaganda and the group’s magazine, Rumiyah, has been published in Uighur, along with English and a range of other languages.
It is believed Uighurs make their way to Kyrgyzstan through the mountains between Kyrgyzstan and Xinjiang. Once in Kyrgyzstan, they fly to Turkey using forged Kyrgyz passports.
Separately, Mr Kaynak told Turkish broadcaster A Hamer that the authorities knew where the suspect, who he described as “specially trained”, was hiding, without giving further details.
He confirmed the gunman had acted alone, but may have had help inside the nightclub.
A couple walk past the Reina nightclub on 5 January 2017 in Istanbul, days after a gunman killed 39 people on
Witnesses to the new year attack said more than 100 rounds of bullets were fired which, the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardener says, indicates the gunman had at least some rudimentary military training.
Mr Kaynak expressed confidence in the Turkish police operation but said he could not rule out the possibility of the attacker fleeing the country.
No Kyrgyz connection
Previous media reports incorrectly suggested the culprit was a national from Kyrgyzstan, after a passport photo claiming to show the attacker was circulated.
It later emerged the passport belonged to someone unrelated to the attack.
Kyrgyzstan’s embassy in Turkey has since asked the media to retract the reports and issue an apology.
More than half of those killed in Sunday’s attack on Istanbul’s popular Reina nightclub were foreigners, including citizens from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iraq and Morocco.
The gunman managed to escape in the aftermath of the attack.
A day later, IS issued a statement saying “a heroic soldier” belonging to the group had carried out the attack in retaliation for Turkey’s military role in northern Syria.
Mr Kaynak also said on Thursday Turks were questioning the use of the country’s Incirlik air base by both Nato and the US-led coalition launching air strikes on IS in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey launched a military operation in Syria in August to push back IS and Kurdish forces.
Some of Turkey’s big cities have since been targeted in a number of bomb attacks by IS and by Kurdish militants.
Turkey’s ruling AK Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are making it official: they are officially an electoral alliance. Recall that the MHP is political wing of the fascist movement behind the Grey Wolves. So we have Erdogan’s Muslim Brotherhood-oriented Islamist fascist AKP formally allying with the parent party of the Grey Wolves.
The alliance appears to be made with the 2019 presidential election in mind. But the alliance was already informally in place. The MHP backed Erdogan’s historic power grab that granted the presidency sweeping powers last year. And that support was critical since the vote only passed with 51 percent.
So, like so many announcements from Erdogan’s party, this doesn’t exactly bode well for Turkey’s future. But it gets worse. Because the AKP teamed with the MHP is enough to provided a majority of the vote in parliament which means all sorts of crazy laws can be passed. And sure enough, the the AKP and MHP also announced an agreement to pass ‘measures designed to ensure electoral security.’ Measure that, not surprisingly, appear to be designed to the exact opposite and make it much easier to subvert the vote.
One proposed change involves allowing ballots that don’t have the official stamp of the YSK High Election Board to be counted. This was actually done last year as part of the referendum to grant Erdogan his sweeping new powers. As expected, the opposition appealed this move and lost.
The YSK will also be given the authority to merge electoral districts and move ballot boxes to other districts. In addition, security forces will also be allowed to attend to ballot boxes when requested by any voter and not leave until the reason for the request has been resolved.
So the YSK can allow unofficial ballots, then move the ballots boxes from one district to another, and security forces will be involved in securing the ballots. In other words, after all these new rules are put in place, the unofficial ballots can all be shipped to districts under control of the AKP or MHP under the ‘protection’ of Turkish security forces who will definitely not allow any tampering *wink wink*.
So if the announcement of the AKP and MHP alliance wasn’t ominous enough for Turkey’s future, the simultaneous announcement that they plan to make rigging the vote a lot easier should do the trick:
“The tie-up underscores Erdogan’s continued reliance on the MHP, the smallest of parliament’s four factions. Last year the MHP backed a vote to create a presidency with sweeping executive powers, helping the proposal squeak by with 51.4 percent of the vote.”
The AKP/MHP alliance helped give Erdogan his sweep new powers. And now it migh allow him to fundamentally undermine the electoral process in profound ways. And between the AKP and MHP they should the votes needed to get whatever this alliance wants approved by the parliament:
“The YSK made a last-minute decision during the 2017 referendum to allow the counting of unstamped ballots, saying such a move was not unprecedented and the government had previously permitted it. The main secular opposition unsuccessfully appealed against that decision.”
So, since allowing unstamped ballots was used last year for the big referendum, how did that go? Well, it ended up being the first time in the democratic history of Turkey that an election has been seen as illegitimate by not only domestic contenders, but by international observers as well. That’s how it went:
“Opposition parties have accepted all of Erdogan’s electoral victories since 2002. But this time they are saying that he rigged the referendum. International observers agree with them. And, for days, hundreds of thousands of people have been peacefully protesting in the streets.”
Yep, not only did the opposition uncharacteristically charge the AKP with rigging the vote, but even the international observers had to cry foul. In part because those international observers kept getting blocked from observing:
And according to the Austrian member of the CoE observer mission, that last-minute change to allow unvalidated ballots could have allowed for the manipulation of up to 6 percent of the total votes (recall that the referendum barely passed with 51 percent):
Beyond that, there were numerous other reports of invalid of fake votes being counted, AKP payments for ‘Yes’ votes, and on NGO found ballot boxes with 100 percent ‘Yes’ votes from 100 percent of eligible voters:
So it’s looking pretty clear that Erdogan’s power grab last year involved an extensive abuse of power. But even with that abuse of power, the support of the fascist MHP was still necessary. And now the AKP and MHP are in alliance and planning even more rule changes that will be rigging elections even easier.
It’s all a grim reminder that when you vote for a parties that don’t actually respect democracy, you aren’t going to have a democracy left when they’re done. And they are never formally done holding power because that’s what the far-right is all about: power at all costs. Costs that obviously include the subversion of democracy.