Russia, the Mexican drug wars, and 9/11

Stratfor has a great article (you need to search for the title in Google and access it through there to see the whole article) on Russia's propensity to reestablish contact with the Soviet Union's old proxy groups, and begin to assert itself abroad more. The article discusses here ways that Russia might try to meddle with the US in the Western hemisphere:

There is also a distinct possibility that through their relationship with the FARC, the Russians could gain entree to open a dialogue with some of the more radical elements of the Latin American drug trafficking organizations, including the hyperviolent Mexican cartels. Even Central American drug trafficking groups like Los Kaibiles, who began life strongly anti-communist, might be willing to accept weapons and funding from “democratic” Russians. Considering that Los Kaibiles are now quite mercenary, they also just might be willing to undertake specific attacks if their price point is met. Many Russian organized criminal groups are closely linked to the Kremlin and are a tool Putin and company are already using. These groups could be used to act as an interface with organized criminal groups elsewhere.

The most interesting possibility to me is Russia fanning the flames of Mexico's drug wars. If the killings started bleeding over more into the US, and the political pressure to seal up the border or even send troops into Mexico got too hot, I can see the US doing something that would isolate it internationally, and generally harm its ability to deal with Russia. A little odd that Stratfor never mentions that the problem could be dealt with in one fell swoop by legalizing the drugs that generate the black market profits that allow the violence to continue.

Though I was disappointed that the article failed to mention what could be Russia's biggest foray back into the Soviet-sponsored terrorism that marked the Cold War: Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda.

I think it's becoming more and more obvious that all of these people at Georgetown getting Security Studies degrees and studying al-Qaeda are on the absolute wrong track. The Cold War never ended for Russia – if al-Zawahiri is indeed under Soviet influence, it means that their contact with him after the collapse Soviet Union dates back as early as 1996. Though if al-Zawahiri is an FSB agent, he was probably a KGB agent too – it would explain perfectly why al-Zawahiri tried to get bin Laden and his number two at the time, Sheikh Azzam, to turn away from the Russians and focus on fighting the Americans. When he didn't get his way, he assassinated Azzam and became bin Laden's new second-in-command at the tail end of the '80s. This, unfortunately for the KGB, coincided with the turmoil of the collapse of the USSR, which explains the gap between when al-Zawahiri gained influence over bin Laden (right after the assassination) and when al-Zawahiri started really collaborating with bin Laden to commit attacks against the West rather than the Soviet Union and apostate Muslim countries (right after his release from "prison" in Russia in 1997).

Underappreciated quote

Perhaps the most underappreciated quote of our era. This is from an interview that Alexander Litvinenko (assassinated FSB turncoat) gave to Poland's Fakt newspaper, in which he discusses Russia's role in terrorism, past and present:

Fakt: Every terrorist you have named is from 'the old staff' of the KGB. Could you name someone from recent history?
A. Litvinenko: Certainly, here it is. The number two person in the terrorist organization al Qaeda, who they are crediting with the series of explosions in London, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is an old agent of the FSB. Being sentenced to death in Egypt for terrorism and hunted by Interpol, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in 1998, was in the territory of Dagestan, where for half a year he received special training at one of the educational bases of the FSB. After this training he was transferred to Afghanistan, where he had never been before and where, following the recommendation of his Lubyanka chiefs, he at once ... penetrated the milieu of bin Laden and soon became his assistant in al Qaeda.

Fakt: Could you hint at least, where this data comes from?
A. Litvinenko: I can. During my service in one of the most secret departments of the FSB, top officials from the UFSB of Dagestan, who had directly worked with Ayman al-Zawahiri ... were called to Moscow and received high posts.

That quote goes nicely with this quote about Ayman al-Zawahiri, from bin Laden's chosen biographer Hamid Mir:

He is the person who can do the things that happened on Sept. 11.

Litvinenkapalooza here. All you can eat al-Zawahiri trough here. For more information on al-Zawahiri's time in Russia, check out the Wikipedia page.

BBC: Russia 'backed Litvinenko murder'

As if it needed to be said:

The murder of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko was carried out with the backing of the Russian state, Whitehall sources have told the BBC.

A senior security official told Newsnight there were "very strong indications it was a state action". [...]

The BBC has been told that Russia's internal security organisation, the FSB, operated under Mr Putin with far more autonomy than the organisations usually entrusted with foreign espionage operations.

Our source said: "We very strongly believe the Litvinenko case to have had some state involvement."

Newsnight has also learned that officers at MI5 believe they thwarted an attempt last summer to kill another Russian dissident, Boris Berezovsky.

The BBC's source said the Berezovsky incident showed "continued FSB willingness to consider operations against people in the West". [...]

In November, head of MI5 Jonathan Evans expressed concern that there had been "no decrease" in the number of Russian covert intelligence officers operating in the UK since the end of the Cold War.

The service believes there are around 30 operating from Russian diplomatic missions here.

My personal opinion on why they killed Litvinenko was that it had something to do with what he knew about 9/11 and related Russian sponsorship of Islamic terrorism. Because it sure doesn't seem worth it to kill him over something like this, when no one outside of Russia seemed to care much. You can find a full archive of Russia-related posts here.

Happy birthday Stephen and Ayman

Today, it's my birthday! It's also Ayman al-Zawahiri's birthday – my favorite Islamic jihadist. He merged his terrorist organization Egyptian Islamic Jihad with bin Laden's al-Qaeda throughout the nineties. Osama bin Laden's favored biographer, Hamid Mir, believes that al-Zawahiri is the "real brains of the outfit" once said that "[h]e is the person who can do the things that happened on Sept. 11" Assassinated former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko claimed that right before the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, al-Zawahiri was trained for six months in an FSB camp in Dagestan. The FSB's ties to al-Zawahiri are just another example of Russian sponsorship of most major terrorist groups and rogue nations. In my opinion, it's a way to drive up oil prices (which Putin's cronies' pockets, give them popular support, and threaten Western economies) and thwart the West's liberalization by making totalitarianism more fashionable.

Anyway, for my birthday present, I want anyone who's a regular reader (or, hell, anyone who's reading this) to leave a comment (anonymously will do) saying hello and telling me what they like and dislike about the blog. And, for those who don't know me (don't ruin it!), guess how old I turned today. If not an exact age, then at least a decade.

Active measures and the Right Reverend Wright

The Jeremiah Wright controversy has the potential to torpedo Obama's campaign, according to results of a poll published by the NYT. I find one of Wright's comments particularly interesting – that is, his belief that AIDS was/is a plot by the American government to decimate Africans and black Americans. Thanks to the Mitrokhin Archive and public acknowledgments by former Soviet officials, we can now say with some certainty that this conspiracy was deliberately propagated by Soviet secret services.  They were part of the broader strategy of active measures which the Soviets were quite fond of – contemporary FSB support of Chechen terrorists and al-Qaeda would fall under the same category. Anyway, I just found it incredible that Soviet active measures from decades ago are still working so well to stir up racial tension in America.

The FSB and 9/11

I sent a letter to La Russophobe – a blog about "the rise (and hopefully fall) of the neo-Soviet Union" – and it was printed (sort of...) on the Wednesday issue. The letter was about the FSB and their links to al-Qaeda and 9/11. Here's the link. My grammar ain't so hot, and she didn't post the links (but left in the footnote indicators), but here it is if you wanna read it.

Once an KGB agent, always a KGB agent

Departing Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has been offered a job shilling for Russia's energy interests in Europe, but has turned it down. This would seem to be a good thing on the face of it: outgoing German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder took the bait just weeks after pushing through legislation favorable to the company, and became the chairman of the Gazprom division that was to build the very pipeline that he had just pushed through. He has been a reliable shill for the Russians ever since, even defending the Russians during the row over the Bronze Soldier statue in Tallinn.

But, Romano Prodi is unfortunately not so innocent. In 1978, amidst what the Italians called the "Years of Lead," during which many terrorist attacks were carried out by far-left and far-right organizations, the prominent Christian Democrat Aldo Moro was assassinated by the Red Brigade before he could negotiate a political truce between the Communists and the Christian Democrats. But before he was killed, while he was being held hostage, Romano Prodi at the time claimed to have taken part in a séance on a whim with a few Italian intellectuals, during which time the place where Moro was being held hostage appeared to him. The police searched the village named Gradoli, but didn't find anything. However, after Moro's death, it turned out that he was being held on via Gradoli, outside of Rome – Prodi either received the information correctly in a séance, or was tipped off by a source in the leftist terrorist organization, the Red Brigade.

The story that Prodi received the correct name in a séance is pretty absurd, but it makes sense if you consider the allegations against him by the Mitrokhin Archives (a series of documents about the KGB's external operations obtained by an FSB double agent). Romano Prodi was accused of being the "KGB's man in Italy." There was an investigation, but nothing ever came of it. The controversy was rekindled in 2006 when it was revealed that assassinated former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko was told by assassinated former FSB deputy director Anatoly Trofimov that Romano Prodi was "one of ours" – that is, an FSB agent. Funny how they both happen to have been assassinated.