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DAVE MONTGOMERY
San Jose Mercury News
September 10, 1999
Title: Bin Laden helped bankroll Dagestan war, expert says Author: DAVE MONTGOMERY Publication: San Jose Mercury News Date: September 10, 1999 MOSCOW -- The war unfolding in Russia's Dagestan province is being waged by a well-trained international force of more than 10,000 that has been planning the insurgency for more than a year, apparently with the support of fugitive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, military and anti-terrorism experts say. A top anti-terrorism adviser to the U.S. Congress said the insurrection is supported by Islamist militants in several countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan, and appears to be heavily financed by bin Laden, accused by the United States of orchestrating the U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania last year. "They're thinking about starting the whole Caucasus aflame," said Yossef Bodansky, director of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare for the U.S. House of Representatives, who said his information is based on what he termed reliable confidential sources. "It's a nasty bunch." Said Sergei Arutyunov, one of Moscow's leading scholars on the North Caucasus region, "Bin Laden aspires to the world domination of Islam. These people are now pulling the strings to what is happening in the Caucasus." The insurrection began Aug. 7 as guerrillas crossed into Dagestan from neighboring Chechnya, seizing several villages. Russian forces claimed to have the invaders on the run after two weeks, but the conflict erupted again over the weekend. Hundreds of insurgents poured back into Dagestan and a car bomb devastated an apartment complex, killing more than 60. The insurgents' stated goal is to carve an independent Islamic state out of Chechnya and Dagestan, on the western side of the Caspian Sea, but a number of experts believe the war is part of a broader crusade to destabilize the oil-rich Caspian region. Far from being a ragtag group, Bodansky said, the insurgents are a multinational force of more than 10,000 disciplined and well-armed fighters who began training months ago at secret bases in Chechnya and in Muslim countries that include Pakistan, Sudan and Afghanistan. Many are veterans of the 1994-96 conflict in Chechnya. The principal field commanders are Shamil Basayev, who led the victorious rebel forces in that war, and "Khattab," a Jordanian of Chechen descent who is a leader of the militant Wahhabi movement. Bodansky asserted that hundreds of sub-commanders are also knowledgeable about terror tactics, bomb making and the use of biological weapons. Bodansky said the force includes fighters from Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan and other Muslim countries, many of them members of the mujahedeen who battled Soviet forces in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. Russia, which will soon reinforce its 15,000 soldiers in the troubled North Caucasus region, thus finds itself mired in an escalating crisis that many analysts now believe could be even worse than its disastrous war in Chechnya, which cost Russia tens of thousands of lives. "It seems they have a war right now that seems unwinnable, and it's going to drag on for months and years," Russian defense analyst Pavel Felgengauer said. Bodansky, who is a recognized expert on bin Laden, described the Saudi as "a spiritual leader" behind the insurrection. He said bin Laden was involved in planning discussions that began in spring 1998 and involved militant movements in at least three other countries. Other participants, Bodansky said, included Basayev and his forces in Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya; high-ranking officers in Pakistani intelligence; and Husan al-Turabi, leader of Sudan's National Islamic Front. Afraid of arrest if he left Afghanistan, bin Laden, an heir to a Saudi construction fortune, communicated through secret emissaries to arrange financing, training and arms shipments, Bodansky said. Ben Venzke, a senior consultant with Pinkerton Global Intelligence Services in Arlington, Va., said the fugitive multimillionaire has been "actively soliciting funds" through a clandestine e-mail network to finance the insurgents in Dagestan. Bin Laden also made a weeklong visit to a training camp in the village of Serzhen-Yurt in Chechnya shortly before the rebels crossed into Dagestan, Venzke said. The camp trains up to 100 fighters at a time, he said. Arutyunov said the international Islamist groups began targeting Dagestan because economic instability has increased resentment toward Moscow. More than 85 percent of the province's wealth is in the hands of 200 families, while most of its 2.2 million residents live far below the poverty line. Overall unemployment is about 30 percent, and tops 80 percent among workers younger than 25. Most Dagestanis have resisted the insurgents, Arutyunov said, but "they recruited young people and families who did construction work for money" on training camps and fortifications in caves with connecting trails that enable them to elude Russian forces. Arutyunov said the rebels "are very well-armed" with anti-tank weapons, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, heavy mortars and armored cars. After training outside Russia, guerrillas were often smuggled into Chechnya through the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, Bodansky said. Analysts believe the insurgents also timed the offensive to take advantage of political and economic instability in Russia proper. The latest Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, took office just days after the Aug. 7 invasion of Dagestan. The military appeared to be close to crushing the insurgency, but optimism was buried by the latest offensive. Russian officials concede they may be facing a prolonged war. "The Russian authorities were not quite sincere when they were saying this war would soon be over," said Alexander Iskandaryan, head of the Center for Caucasian Studies in Moscow. "Of course, it did not end, and I'm afraid it will last for years." http://www.sjmercury.com/premium/world/docs/dagestan10.htm
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