DUTCH REPORT:
US SPONSORED FOREIGN ISLAMISTS IN BOSNIA
By Richard J Aldrich
Reprinted from The Guardian (LONDON)
Monday April 22, 2002
Comments by Jared Israel
[Posted 22 April 2002]
=======================================
The long-awaited Dutch government report on the Bosnian war has been
released. Elsewhere we discuss its findings on the so-called massacre in
Srebrenica (1). But aside from Srebrenica, the report has very important
things to say about US cooperation with and sponsorship of Islamist
terrorism in Bosnia. This is discussed in the Guardian article, below.
The Guardian gave their article the title: "America Used Islamists To Arm
The Bosnian Muslims." This is misleading. they are using the term "Bosnian
Muslims" to refer to the Muslim faction led by Alijah Izetbegovic.
Izetbegovic is a Muslim fundamentalist who began his political career
supporting the Nazis during World War II. (2)
During the fighting in Bosnia, Muslims were sharply divided between pro-
and anti-Izetbegovic factions. Many anti-Izetbegovic Muslims allied with
the Bosnian Serbs. The Western media labeled these people, "Muslim Rebels."
But Izetbegovic's Islamist faction was referred to as "the Muslim-backed
government in Sarajevo."
(In olden times, a priest officiated in the coronation of a European king.
But now the rite is performed by the Western media.)
Even among Muslims, one could argue that Izetbegovic was not the leading
politician. In the 1990 elections, the biggest vote-getter was Fikret
Abdic. And it was Abdic who led the anti-Islamist Muslims who were allied
with the Bosnian Serbs. For more on Mr. Abdic, see the article,
"Pro-Yugoslav Muslim Leader Put On Trial," at
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/abdic.htm
For more on the role of outside Islamists in the Bosnian conflict, see "Bin
Laden in the Balkans" at http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm
-- Jared Israel
***
America Used Islamists To Arm The Bosnian Muslims The Srebrenica Report
Reveals The Pentagon's Role In A Dirty War
By Richard J Aldrich
The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, released last
week, contains one of the most sensational reports on western intelligence
ever published. Officials have been staggered by its findings and the Dutch
government has resigned. One of its many volumes is devoted to clandestine
activities during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s. For five years,
Professor Cees Wiebes of Amsterdam University has had unrestricted access
to Dutch intelligence files and has stalked the corridors of secret service
headquarters in western capitals, as well as in Bosnia, asking questions.
His findings are set out in "Intelligence and the war in Bosnia,
1992-1995". It includes remarkable material on covert operations, signals
interception, human agents and double-crossing by dozens of agencies in one
of dirtiest wars of the new world disorder. Now we have the full story of
the secret alliance between the Pentagon and radical Islamist groups from
the Middle East designed to assist the Bosnian Muslims - some of the same
groups that the Pentagon is now fighting in "the war against terrorism".
Pentagon operations in Bosnia have delivered their own "blowback".
In the 1980s Washington's secret services had assisted Saddam Hussein in
his war against Iran. Then, in 1990, the US fought him in the Gulf. In both
Afghanistan and the Gulf, the Pentagon had incurred debts to Islamist
groups and their Middle Eastern sponsors. By 1993 these groups, many
supported by Iran and Saudi Arabia, were anxious to help Bosnian Muslims
fighting in the former Yugoslavia and called in their debts with the
Americans. Bill Clinton and the Pentagon were keen to be seen as
creditworthy and repaid in the form of an Iran-Contra style operation - in
flagrant violation of the UN security council arms embargo against all
combatants in the former Yugoslavia.
The result was a vast secret conduit of weapons smuggling though Croatia.
This was arranged by the clandestine agencies of the US, Turkey and Iran,
together with a range of radical Islamist groups, including Afghan
mojahedin and the pro-Iranian Hizbullah. Wiebes reveals that the British
intelligence services obtained documents early on in the Bosnian war
proving that Iran was making direct deliveries.
Arms purchased by Iran and Turkey with the financial backing of Saudi
Arabia made their way by night from the Middle East. Initially aircraft
from Iran Air were used, but as the volume increased they were joined by a
mysterious fleet of black C-130 Hercules aircraft. The report stresses that
the US was "very closely involved" in the airlift. Mojahedin fighters were
also flown in, but they were reserved as shock troops for especially
hazardous operations.
Light weapons are the familiar currency of secret services seeking to
influence such conflicts. The volume of weapons flown into Croatia was
enormous, partly because of a steep Croatian "transit tax". Croatian forces
creamed off between 20% and 50% of the arms. The report stresses that this
entire trade was clearly illicit. The Croats themselves also obtained
massive quantities of illegal weapons from Germany, Belgium and Argentina -
again in contravention of the UN arms embargo. The German secret services
were fully aware of the trade.
Rather than the CIA, the Pentagon's own secret service was the hidden force
behind these operations. The UN protection force, UNPROFOR, was dependent
on its troop-contributing nations for intelligence, and above all on the
sophisticated monitoring capabilities of the US to police the arms embargo.
This gave the Pentagon the ability to manipulate the embargo at will:
ensuring that American Awacs aircraft covered crucial areas and were able
to turn a blind eye to the frequent nightime comings and goings at Tuzla.
Weapons flown in during the spring of 1995 were to turn up only a fortnight
later in the besieged and demilitarised enclave at Srebrenica. When these
shipments were noticed, Americans pressured UNPROFOR to rewrite reports,
and when Norwegian officials protested about the flights, they were
reportedly threatened into silence.
Both the CIA and British SIS had a more sophisticated perspective on the
conflict than the Pentagon, insisting that no side had clean hands and
arguing for caution. James Woolsey, director of the CIA until May 1995, had
increasingly found himself out of step with the Clinton White House over
his reluctance to develop close relations with the Islamists. The
sentiments were reciprocated. In the spring of 1995, when the CIA sent its
first head of station to Sarajevo to liaise with Bosnia's security
authorities, the Bosnians tipped off Iranian intelligence. The CIA learned
that the Iranians had targeted him for liquidation and quickly withdrew him.
Iranian and Afghan veterans' training camps had also been identified in
Bosnia. Later, in the Dayton Accords of November 1995, the stipulation
appeared that all foreign forces be withdrawn. This was a deliberate
attempt to cleanse Bosnia of Iranian-run training camps. The CIA's main
opponents in Bosnia were now the mojahedin fighters and their Iranian
trainers - whom the Pentagon had been helping to supply months earlier.
Meanwhile, the secret services of Ukraine, Greece and Israel were busy
arming the Bosnian Serbs. Mossad was especially active and concluded a deal
with the Bosnian Serbs at Pale involving a substantial supply of artillery
shells and mortar bombs. In return they secured safe passage for the Jewish
population out of the besieged town of Sarajevo. Subsequently, the
remaining population was perplexed to find that unexploded mortar bombs
landing in Sarajevo sometimes had Hebrew markings.
The broader lessons of the intelligence report on Srebrenica are clear.
Those who were able to deploy intelligence power, including the Americans
and their enemies, the Bosnian Serbs, were both able to get their way.
Conversely, the UN and the Dutch government were "deprived of the means and
capacity for obtaining intelligence" for the Srebrenica deployment, helping
to explain why they blundered in, and contributed to the terrible events
there.
Secret intelligence techniques can be war-winning and life-saving. But they
are not being properly applied. How the UN can have good intelligence in
the context of multinational peace operations is a vexing question.
Removing light weapons from a conflict can be crucial to drawing it down.
But the secret services of some states - including Israel and Iran -
continue to be a major source of covert supply, pouring petrol on the
flames of already bitter conflicts.
Richard J Aldrich is Professor of Politics at the University of Nottingham.
His 'The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence' is
published in paperback by John Murray in August.
richard.aldrich@nottingham.ac.uk
(c) Guardian 2002 Reprinted for Fair Use Only
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,688310,00.html
***
EMPEROR'S CLOTHES IS UNDER ATTACK! (See below)
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FURTHER READING
********************************
1) For a list of Emperor's Clothes articles on Srebrenica, with brief
descriptions, go to http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/list-s.htm
2) For a revealing quote from Alijah Izetbegovic's book, "Islamic
Declaration," and a bit on his role during World War II, see "JOE LIEBERMAN
- APOLOGIST FOR THE FASCIST KLA" at
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/garris/duringthe.htm
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