Because the issue was raised in another thread, I'd like to note that the Russian FSB has confirmed the death of Abu Omar al-Saif as well as most of the key details that are circulating on the various eulogies posted on al-Qaeda and other pro-jihadi websites, including that of the Algerian GSPC. He was (at least as of 1995) the North Caucasus head of the al-Haramain Foundation, one of several "dual use" NGOs that has long served as an al-Qaeda front wherever it sets up shop. That made him the moneyman for anybody who was interested in joining bin Laden's protege Khattab for his jihad in the Caucasus and eventually ended up in him becoming the spiritual leader and the fatwa man for Basayev's fighters. He's called for attacks on US troops in Iraq and, likely with an eye to keeping the Gulf cash flowing, has urged al-Qaeda fighters in Saudi Arabia to go to Iraq rather than wage their campaign at home.
The other 3 al-Qaeda leaders the Russians have killed this year are probably worthy of some mention on their own right. Jaber al-Taifi was the deputy and bodyguard commander to Abu Hafs al-Urduni, a Jordanian al-Qaeda leader who is currently the commander of the Chechen Arab contingent under Shamil Basayev, was featured during Collin Powell's 2002 presentation to the UN Security Council, and has also called for attacks on US forces in Iraq. Abu Dzeit/Abu Omar al-Kuwaiti is the Russified form of Abu Zeid, whose real name is Ahmad Nasser Eid Abdullah Fajiri al-Azmi and who was responsible for training Chechen suicide bombers as well as their special operations units like the group that orchestrated what happened in Beslan - the AP even got ahold of a video of him and Basayev planning the attack. Abu Jarah al-Urduni, who like al-Saif was affiliated with the al-Haramain Foundation, was Zarqawi's cousin and his older brother is supposed a member of the al-Qaeda ruling council.
I should note, as I always try to in these posts, that I do not support Russian actions or tactics in Chechnya but that the fact does not change the issue of there being a hefty international component amongst the Chechen rebels in the form of Shamil Basayev and his merry band of murderers. Most recently, for example, is the news that the Spanish are currently looking into the connections between 2 Chechens (almost certainly Basayev followers from the description) and the Hofstandt Group that murdered Theo Van Gogh or that they have been working together with their Dutch counterparts to thwart a possible terrorist attack by Chechen terrorists based in the Netherlands. While I certainly and loudly condemn the atrocities perpetrated by Russia, that doesn't change the fact that some Chechens have gotten into bed with some very nasty people whose agendas span far beyond the North Caucasus.
The trouble is that it's almost impossible to give credence to official Russian pronouncements on events in the North Caucasus - especially the pronouncements of the FSB, and of Mr Patrushev in particular, who has now picked up the Abu Omar al-Saif story again after a period of approximately a month. The Kremlin - with Patrushev as its mouthpiece - is apparently desperate, ready to use every and any propaganda opportunity at its disposal in order to characterize its bloody repression in Chechnya as part of the international war on terror (what Andrei Sakharov's widow, Elena Bonner, has aptly named "The Big Lie"). The Kremlin and its security forces will go to almost any lengths to persuade the West that this is so. While no one would argue that there are some very unpleasant characters indeed roaming the North Caucasus - and Russia - at present, there is still a large question-mark over precisely who and/or what these individuals represent.
The Kremlin would like us to think that "Al Qaeda" is involved - but it could just as well be the case that the Kremlin is involved in assisting international terrorists, as it has done for many decades in the past. The lack of transparency (to put it mildly) in the workings of the FSB, together with the inescapable fact that this organization is the direct heir and successor to the agencies that organized the Great Terror, make it hard to have much confidence in its public statements and actions on terrorism. These are at present aimed at restricting personal freedoms and human rights in Russia as a whole under the pretext of rooting out supposed Western and "spies", and at preventing social change of the kind that has occurred in Georgia and Ukraine.
At the same time National Socialism - a particularly obnoxious form of fascism, as history has taught us - is on the rise in Russia, largely fuelled by government-encouraged campaigns of ethnic hatred.
David McDuff:
One thing to be considered though is that the Bad Guys are picking up the Abu Omar al-Saif story and indeed reported it before the Russians did and even provided more details, including al-Saif's real name and background. The same has usually been true in the case of Abu Zaid (Abu Dzeit), Abu Walid, and so on going all the way back to Khattab. In most cases, Western intelligence services (Abu Hafs al-Urduni, for instance, first appeared in a US rather than a Russian statement) as well as court documents are more or less agreeing with the general if not the particular nature of the Russian line on Chechnya. The FSB didn't fake the video of Basayev plotting Beslan with Abu Zaid and the Colonel, for instance, that surfaced on known al-Qaeda websites.
The chief difference between the Kremlin version of the story and what has actually happened is to a certain extent things have become a self-fulfilling prophecy - it is precisely because of the Russian brutality and oppression in Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus (which was implemented on the purported grounds that anyone who didn't want to live under Russian rule was the pawn of international terrorists) that Wahhabism and Basayev's followers have become so influential. They never could have been able to carry out the recent attack on Nalchik, for instance, if not for the Soviet-style religious oppression now going on in Kabardino-Balkaria.
Given that al-Qaeda is both a secret organization and a coalition as well as that most of its member do not identify themselves as such, we can take a look at the facts and weigh the evidence accordingly. The involvement of al-Saif in the Caucasus branch of the al-Haramain Foundation is not in dispute, nor is the fact that the al-Haramain Foundation and a number of other Saudi NGOs have acted as al-Qaeda fronts in the past. We know that al-Saif is a Saudi Arab and from his appearance in various propaganda videos we know that he was a key financier of Basayev and Khattab's followers. We also know on the basis of his own words that he supports Zarqawi's jihad in Iraq and that he sees himself in a position to command the respect if not obedience of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Note that most of these conclusions can be drawn entirely independent of official Russian pronouncements, but as a result of them I don't think that it's all that unlikely to conclude that their description of the man is an accurate one.
It could well be - we've certainly seen enough of Russian-Iraqi collaboration, for instance. However, if you want to make a claim that the Russians are in cahoots with al-Qaeda, for instance, then you have to present a little more detailed claim so that we can weigh that on the basis of the evidence. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri have both been quite clear that neither has any use for the Russian state as it now exists, for instance.
Quite right. However, when both the Russians and the people who are fighting them admit that Abu Omar al-Saif (who has previously appeared on Basayev and Khattab's propaganda videos) is dead and then start using a lot of the same biographical details, I'll start to consider that reasonably credible. Precisely because the Kremlin is so eager to paint the situation in the North Caucasus as the work of al-Qaeda, whenever they actually kill an al-Qaeda leader they tend to try and shout it from the rooftops. Now, is there a lot of self-serving and not-so-creeping authoritarianism that has also been used as an excuse to prevent the rise of a democratic revolution in Russia? Quite right and Putin and his cohorts should be rightfully condemned for it, but the truth is still the truth even if the devil himself says it.
Indeed and as I tried to explain, that's one of the reasons their labeling the North Caucasus as a terrorist haven is quickly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
David, although you are right to say that a lot of the information that comes out of the FSB is unreliable, it's worth noting that, when they do report* the death of major Chechen terrorist leaders, they do tend to 'stay dead' - in the sense that they don't reappear on the Chechen scene again.
I'd agree entirely though that Russia is not fighting in Chechnya as a part of the war on terrorism. Russia acts in Chechnya entirely for it's own reasons (usually not very good ones) and, if anything, their brutal and criminal rule there is doing more harm than good to the anti-radical Islam cause.
Unfortunately, given the political situation in Russia now - everyone jockying to be Putin's successor, I don't see any resolution to the conflict in Chechnya over the next few years.
*By this I mean when the FSB provides an official report, rather than when some two-bit colonel is quoted in Mosnews.
Dan Darling:
I hear your arguments, and agree substantially on the "self-fulfilling prophecy" theory.
But I don't really want to get into a protracted debate here. My aim was just to point to some of the reasons why it's hard to listen to figures like Patrushev with much or any sympathy.
Also, it sometimes seems to those of us outside the United States that in relation to foreign policy America and her politicians now care primarily - I would even say exclusively - about the issues that relate to the war on terror. Where human rights and personal liberty are threatened in the specific way that they are in Eastern Europe - and that extends not only to the present precarious situation in Ukraine, but also to the North Caucasus and Chechnya - America now tends to be indifferent. That's a tragedy, when one thinks back in comparison to the late 1980s, and the positive role that the US played in those years.
As far as the "in cahoots with Al Qaeda" hypothesis goes, I'd simply point to the factor of historical probability - all those decades of Kremlin-sponsored PLO, Libyan, Nicaraguan and other terrorism haven't just melted away: they are still a vivid and living memory for many people in the world.
And the Devil isn't known for speaking the truth. :)
Andy:
>>it's worth noting that, when they do report the death of major Chechen terrorist leaders, they do tend to 'stay dead' - in the sense that they don't reappear on the Chechen scene again.<<
I think that is questionable. I don't have examples here right now, but on the chechnya-sl list I can remember in the last five years or so at least several cases where Chechen terrorists who were supposedly dead were mysteriously claimed to have been killed again in action a year or even two years later. The excuse is usually a mix-up over names, but it points to confusion at best, and plain lying at worst.
And then there is the Beslan hostage-taking. We're supposed to believe that Nurpashi Kulayev (currently on trial in Vladikavkaz) is the sole surviving terrorist - yet many eyewitnesses who have testified at the trial claim to have seen some or even many of the fighters escape. We were told that there were Arab fighters among the hostage-takers, yet no one at the trial claims to have seen them.
Meanwhile the FSB continue to repeat their assertions about Iran training Chechen terrorists, and so on... The propaganda is simply not credible, and is even laughable because it's so inept.
Andy:
I'm not so sure about that - I recall that Khattab, Basayev, and even Movsar Barayev have all been reported as being dead at various points in the last several years, only to be disproven. I usually track the death of senior Chechen leaders (or at least the ones I'm worried about) by monitoring various al-Qaeda or pro-jihadi websites and then waiting until they post their eulogies. If they do and then the Russians confirm as in the case of al-Saif, I'm inclined to consider that a kill since the Islamists have no reason to falsely report the death of their own leaders.
Russia is fighting in Chechnya to try and hang on to as much of the North Caucasus as possible and (depending on how Machiavellian their planning is) to try and expand their sphere of influence further south into Georgia and Azerbaijan.
David McDuff:
I agree that US regard for human rights in the North Caucasus has been sacrificed to a certain extent in the service of the war on terrorism, but I don't think that it need be such. As I noted and you agreed, it is the problems with current Russian policy in Chechnya that is fueling the rise of terrorism in the North Caucasus and monsters like Basayev.
As for Russian sponsorship of al-Qaeda, near as I can tell the Kremlin today isn't out for world domination the way they were when a hammer and a sickle were hanging over it. Most of their North Caucasus (and Ukrainian and Belarusian and Central Asian, etc.) policy is based around the idea of keeping as much of their tottering empire intact as possible and expanding their sphere of influence. Russia wanted to attack Afghanistan before 9/11, for instance (I'm sure bin Laden and Mullah Omar would have loved that given their dubious track record in Chechnya), so I think it's highly unlikely that they would be backing them absent evidence to the contrary. It's sort of like the speculation one runs across in Russia that the US would be supporting the Chechens because we supported anti-Soviet groups.
My own understanding of the US view of Beslan is that there were indeed additional hostage-takers who escaped and that only Nurpashi Kulayev got away. As for Arabs taking part in Beslan, my understanding is that there was at least one, a Saudi named Abu Farukh, who appeared in one of the propaganda videos on Abu Zaid's (Abu Dzeit) website that was filmed in a forest near Beslan - I think that there was also another guy of Middle Eastern or North African extraction among the official 32 hostage-takers. There also appear to have been a British national of Algerian ethnicity named Kamel Rabat Bouralha who took part in planning the seige and formerly attended London's infamous Finsbury Park Mosque, a known al-Qaeda node in the UK. The other names that I recall off-hand included nearly as many Ingush as Chechens. I think they also said that there was also a Korean merc with them, but I don't remember if that was ever confirmed or not.
One slight quibble on the Iran training Chechens is that that particular allegations comes from the Daily Telegraph and is attributed to British intelligence, not the FSB.
David - but who do the initial reports of terrorists being killed come from? A 'source' within the FSB, or an official FSB press release? I'd wager that the majority of reports that subsequently turn out to be untrue come from an unofficial source.
The trial of Nurpashi Kulayev is certainly not a fair trial (although it is prone to some quite dramatic departures from the Russian government's 'script'). But I don't have any particular concerns that he was the only terrorist to survive.
Firstly, although you cite witness reports, it is worth remembering that reports from witnesses to a crisis regularly turn out to be absolute crap. I'm sure you remember that eyewitnesses to last weekend's massive oil refinery explosion reported seeing planes just before the explosion, prompting rumours of a terrorist attack. Also, some of the terrorists did actually escape from the school, only to be cornered and killed a couple of hours later. Might these be the escapees eyewitnesses are referring to, mistakenly thinking that they entirely escaped?
Secondly, if any terrorists did escape, I would expect them to turn up in propaganda videoes or reports. So far as I know, none of these have appeared.
For background to the Beslan siege, I'd recommend Kevin Sim's documentary film "Siege of School No. 1", which was shown on PBS and UK Channel 4 earlier this year:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/beslan/briefing.html
There is also the British Channel 4 documentary "Chechnya: The Dirty War" - I translated Alexander Nekrasov's Novaya Gazeta review of it here:
http://halldor2.blogspot.com/2005/08/chechnya-dirty-war.html
Re the "Iran training Chechen rebels story" - yes, it was put into circulation by British intellligence via the Daily Telegraph. But since British intelligence is collaborating with the FSB and other Russian security agencies in the name of the war on terror, we have to assume that the disinformation originated in the RF.
Andy,
For #3, "I'd agree entirely though that Russia is not fighting in Chechnya as a part of the war on terrorism. Russia acts in Chechnya entirely for it's own reasons (usually not very good ones) and, if anything, their brutal and criminal rule there is doing more harm than good to the anti-radical Islam cause."
How many nations got into the 'war on terror' for impersonal reasons? One can say that the war on terror was already going on, and US got into it after 11th Sep. for its own reasons.
To a simple mind like me, any terrorist killed anywhere is one terrorist less to be worried about blowing up in the neighbourhood malls. If the Russians want to do it their way, its up to them, unless they are not impacting any other nation's sovereign rights. If the rest of the world wants to do something about it, then they should be more upfront, rather than just occassionally dropping in the human rights issues with the Russians.
Just my 2 cents worth
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