U.s. Oil Companies Recruit Al Qaeda To Fight The Armenians

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Center for Research on Globalization, Canada

July 30 2005

 

 

Al Qaeda, U.S. Oil Companies, and Central Asia

Excerpt of a forthcoming book entitled The Road to 9/11

 

 

by Peter Dale Scott

 

 

July 30, 2005

GlobalResearch.ca

 

 

What is slowly emerging from Al Qaeda activities in Central Asia in

the 1990s is the extent to which they involved both American oil

companies and the U.S. government.[1] By now we know that the

U.S.-protected movements of al Qaeda terrorists into regions like

Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Kosovo have served the interests of U.S.

oil companies. In many cases they have also provided pretexts or

opportunities for a U.S. military commitment and even troops to

follow.

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. Operatives, Oil Companies and Al Qaeda in Azerbaijan

 

 

In one former Soviet Republic, Azerbaijan, Arab Afghan jihadis

clearly assisted this effort of U.S. oil companies to penetrate the

region. In 1991, Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn,

three veterans of U.S. operations in Laos, and later of Oliver

North's operations with the Contras, turned up in Baku under the

cover of an oil company, MEGA Oil.[14] This was at a time when the

first Bush administration had expressed its support for an oil

pipeline stretching from Azerbaijan across the Caucasus to

Turkey.[15] MEGA never did find oil, but did contribute materially to

the removal of Azerbaijan from the sphere of post-Soviet Russian

influence.

 

 

Secord, Aderholt, and Dearborn were all career U.S. Air Force

officers, not CIA. However Secord explains in his memoir how Aderholt

and himself were occasionally seconded to the CIA as CIA detailees.

Secord describes his own service as a CIA detailee with Air America

in first Vietnam and then Laos, in cooperation with the CIA Station

Chief Theodore Shackley.[16] Secord later worked with Oliver North to

supply arms and materiel to the Contras in Honduras, and also

developed a small air force for them, using many former Air America

pilots.[17] Because of this experience in air operations, CIA

Director Casey and Oliver North had selected Secord to trouble-shoot

the deliveries of weapons to Iran in the Iran-Contra operation.[18]

(Aderholt and Dearborn also served in the Laotian CIA operation, and

later in supporting the Contras.)

 

 

As MEGA operatives in Azerbaijan, Secord, Aderholt, Dearborn, and

their men engaged in military training, passed "brown bags filled

with cash" to members of the government, and above all set up an

airline on the model of Air America which soon was picking up

hundreds of mujahedin mercenaries in Afghanistan.[19] (Secord and

Aderholt claim to have left Azerbaijan before the mujahedin arrived.)

Meanwhile, Hekmatyar, who at the time was still allied with bin

Laden, was "observed recruiting Afghan mercenaries [i.e. Arab

Afghans] to fight in Azerbaijan against Armenia and its Russian

allies."[20] At this time, heroin flooded from Afghanistan through

Baku into Chechnya, Russia, and even North America.[21] It is

difficult to believe that MEGA's airline (so much like Air America)

did not become involved.[22]

 

 

The operation was not a small one. "Over the course of the next two

years, [MEGA Oil] procured thousands of dollars worth of weapons and

recruited at least two thousand Afghan mercenaries for Azerbaijan -

the first mujahedin to fight on the territory of the former Communist

Bloc."[23]

 

 

In 1993 the mujahedin also contributed to the ouster of Azerbaijan's

elected president, Abulfaz Elchibey, and his replacement by an

ex-Communist Brezhnev-era leader, Heidar Aliyev.

 

 

At stake was an $8 billion oil contract with a consortium of western

oil companies headed by BP. Part of the contract would be a pipeline

which would, for the first time, not pass through Russian-controlled

territory when exporting oil from the Caspian basin to Turkey. Thus

the contract was bitterly opposed by Russia, and required an Azeri

leader willing to stand up to the former Soviet Union.

 

 

The Arab Afghans helped supply that muscle. Their own eyes were set

on fighting Russia in the disputed Armenian-Azeri region of

Nagorno-Artsax, and in liberating neighboring Muslim areas of

Russia: Chechnya and Dagestan.[24] To this end, as the 9/11 Report

notes (58), the bin Laden organization established an NGO in Baku,

which became a base for terrorism elsewhere.[25] It also became a

transshipment point for Afghan heroin to the Chechen mafia, whose

branches "extended not only to the London arms market, but also

throughout continental Europe and North America."[26]

 

 

The Arab Afghans' Azeri operations were financed in part with Afghan

heroin.

 

 

According to police sources in the Russian capital, 184 heroin

processing labs were discovered in Moscow alone last year. ''Every

one of them was run by Azeris, who use the proceeds to buy arms for

Azerbaijan's war against Armenia in Nagorno- Artsax,'' [Russian

economist Alexandre] Datskevitch said.[27]

 

 

This foreign Islamist presence in Baku was also supported by bin

Laden's financial network.[28] With bin Laden's guidance and Saudi

support, Baku soon became a base for jihadi operations against

Dagestan and Chechnya in Russia.[29]And an informed article argued in

1999 that Pakistan's ISI, facing its own disposal problem with the

militant Arab-Afghan veterans, trained and armed them in Afghanistan

to fight in Chechnya. ISI also encouraged the flow of Afghan drugs

westward to support the Chechen militants, thus diminishing the flow

into Pakistan itself.[30]

 

 

As Michael Griffin has observed, the regional conflicts in

Nagorno-Artsax and other disputed areas, Abkhazia, Turkish

Kurdistan and Chechnya each represented a distinct, tactical move,

crucial at the time, in discerning which power would ultimately

become master of the pipelines which, some time in this century, will

transport the oil and gas from the Caspian basin to an energy-avid

world.[31]

 

 

The wealthy Saudi families of al-Alamoudi (as Delta Oil) and bin

Mahfouz (as Nimir Oil) participated in the western oil consortium as

partners with the American firm Unocal. In October 2001, the U. S.

Treasury Department named among charities allegedly providing funds

to al Qaeda the Saudi charity Muwafaq (Blessed Relief), to which the

al-Alamoudis and bin Mahfouz families were named as major

contributors.[32] One cannot discern whether religion or oil was

their primary charitable motive.

 

 

It is unclear whether MEGA Oil was a front for the U.S. Government or

for U.S. oil companies and their Saudi allies. U.S. oil companies

have been accused of spending millions of dollars in Azerbaijan, not

just to bribe the government but also to install it. According to a

Turkish intelligence source who was an alleged eyewitness, major oil

companies, including Exxon and Mobil, were "behind the coup d'itat"

which in 1993 replaced the elected President, Abulfaz Elchibey, with

his successor, Heydar Aliyev. The source claimed to have been at

meetings in Baku with "senior members of BP, Exxon, Amoco, Mobil and

the Turkish Petroleum Company. The topic was always oil rights and,

on the insistence of the Azeris, supply and arms to Azerbaijan."

Turkish secret service documents allege middlemen paid off key

officials of the democratically elected government of the oil-rich

nation just before its president was overthrown.[33]

 

 

The true facts and backers of the Aliyev coup may never be fully

disclosed. But unquestionably, before the coup, the efforts of

Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, Ed Dearborn and Hekmatyar's

mujahedin helped contest Russian influence and prepare for Baku's

shift away to the west.[34] Three years later, in August 1996,

Amoco's president met with Clinton and arranged for Aliyev to be

invited to Washington.[35] In 1997 Clinton said that

 

 

In a world of growing energy demand.our nation cannot afford to rely

on a single region for our energy supplies. By working closely with

Azerbaijan to tap the Caspian's resources, we not only help

Azerbaijan to prosper, we also help diversify our energy supply and

strengthen our energy's security.[36]

 

 

 

 

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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

NOVEMBER 16, 1993

By DANIEL SNEIDER

 

 

Afghan Fighters Joined Azeri-Armenian

 

 

Captured documents taken from battlefields in southwestern Azerbaijan

provide the first hard evidence that Afghan troops hired by the

Azerbaijan government were actively involved in recent fighting with

Armenian forces.

 

 

Security authorities in this mountainous region, which is the

stronghold of ethnic Armenian forces, showed the Chrisitan Science

Monitor a collection of material including Islamic literature printed

in Afghanistan, notebooks and charts on the organization of artillery

units, unmailed personal letters addressed to Pakistan and Afghanistan,

 

 

and an array of personal snapshots of the Afghan warriors taken in

identifiable locations within Azerbaijan. Most of the documents were

written in either Dari, the Afghan dialect of Persian, or Pashto, the

language of the majority of Afghans.

 

 

Reports that Azerbaijan had hired a force of more than 1,000 Afghan

mujahideen fighters surfaced in two Western newspapers in November

1993, citing diplomatic sources in the Azeri capital of Baku.

Azerbaijan government officials subsequently denied those reports. But

the material provided to the Monitor is the first concrete evidence

obtained by a Western news organization verifying those initial

reports.

 

 

The decision of the Azerbaijan government to involve Afghan mujahideen

in its five-year undeclared war with the Armenians fighting for

self-determination of Nagorno Karabagh marks a turning point in that

conflict.

 

 

After long periods of fighting in which the advantage fluctuated

between the two sides, the Armenians consolidated control of Karabagh

in 1992. In quick succession in March 1993, Karabagh troops seized the

crucial Kelbadjar corridor between Karabagh and Armenia and then began

capturing key towns to the south and east of Karabagh. In all, Karabagh

 

 

controls one quarter of the territory in Azerbaijan.

 

 

Armenian officials now warn that the introduction of Muslim Afghan

fighters poses the danger of turning the conflict, between Christian

Armenians and Muslim Turkic Azeris, into a religious war. It further

intensifies the danger of broadening of the conflict to involve

neighboring Iran and Turkey, provoking a reaction from Russia, which

also borders this region. Azerbaijan and Armenia are both former Soviet

 

 

republics.

 

 

"The Azeris want to turn this war into a religious one, which we

haven't accepted from the beginning and which we won't accept," said

Robert Kocharian, the head of the State Committee on Defense of Nagorno

 

 

Karabagh and the de facto ruler of this enclave [Ed. note: Robert

Kocharian was elected president of Armenia in early 1998]. Karabagh now

 

 

claims its status as an independent republic.

 

 

"Involvement of new forces in this conflict will only make the

situation more complex," echoed Armenian Republic President Levon Ter

Petrosian, in an interview in his office in Yerevan [Ed. note: Levon

Ter Petrosian served as president from 1991 until his resignation in

early 1998]. "It creates the preconditions for internationalizing the

conflict, which is neither desirable for us or for Azerbaijan, nor for

the international community."

 

 

The decision of the government of President Heydar Aliyev to involve

the Afghans is widely believed to reflect their desperation after a

string of military defeats at Armenian hands.

 

 

In mid-August 1993, according to the Western newspaper reports, deputy

Interior Minister Roshan Jivadov made a secret trip to Afghanistan. He

met there with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Afghan premier and head of the

Islamic fundamentalist Hezb-I-Islamic faction, and reportedly made a

deal. Western sources in Yerevan believe the fighters came from the

Hektmatyar group itself.

 

 

Starting in September 1993, the Karabagh military began intercepting

radio signals in Dari, according to Kamo Abrahamiam, the head of the

National Security Department. Mr. Abrahamiam, a former Soviet

paratrooper trained in the Dari language for service during the war in

Afghanistan, said the intercepts indicated that Afghans were deployed

in several separated locations.

 

 

Despite some evidence of the presence of Afghans, they were surprised

when an attack was launched on October 21, 1993 on Armenian lines in

the Jevrail region in southwest Azerbaijan, breaking a long cease-fire.

 

 

"We were attacked by a battalion of about 300 Afghan soldiers,"

Abrahamiam says.

 

 

Within two days, on October 23, the Armenians mounted a counter

offensive, rapidly driving the Afghans and their Azeri allies out of

Azerbaijan territory, capturing the Jebrail, Fizuli, and Zangelan

regions which border Iran. The Afghans, who Abrahamiam says were

heavily armed with standard Soviet infantry weapons and fought with far

 

 

greater discipline and ability than the Azeris, removed their dead from

 

 

the battlefield. But in the town of Goradis, near the Iranian border,

and in Zangelan, Armenians found documents in buildings that housed the

 

 

Afghan troops.

 

 

Among the material laid out on a table in Abrahamiam's office were

several religious pamphlets in Pashto and Dari, one of them marked as

publication of the Scientific Islamic Society of Afghanistan. An

interpreter accompanying this reporter who was also trained in Arabic

and other oriental languages was able to verify these translations.

Others bore the Afghan coat of arms.

 

 

One handwritten notebook contained a vocabulary list, with Azeri terms

written down one side and Dari down the other. Another notebook

contained an extensive manual on how to fire artillery weapons, with

charts on how to compute trajectories. A neatly ruled chart listed

various artillery weapons with their various capabilities such as range

 

 

and weight.

 

 

A faded document bore the letterhead, in English and Pashto, of the

Ministry of Education of the Islamic State of Afghanistan. Handwritten

in Russian on several pages presumably by Azeri authorities, there is a

 

 

list for the mujahideen to register their personal weapons. About 100

typically Afghan (or Pakistani) names are present such as Ferhad

Abdulrazak or Nizamuddin Inatullah, by no means of Azeri origin.

 

 

But the most convincing proof is a set of photos, mementos of the

Afghan fighters, clothed in the characteristic garb, of their stay in

Azerbaijan. In many of them, Russian-made cars with Azeri license tags

are visible in the background. One was the type typically taken by

professionals at Soviet tourist sites, with the inscription of a major

northwestern Azeri city on the bottom-"Ganzha, 1993," it read.

 

 

A number of the photos appear to have been taken at the training camp

of the former 104th Airborne Division of the Soviet Army near Ganzha.

"I was trained there," says Abrahamiam. "I know this place very well. I

 

 

crawled over every millimeter of it on my belly." In the photos he

identifies an open-air cinema and a warehouse. But even without his

identification, a parachute practice jump structure is visible in the

background of one picture.

 

 

with their various capabilities such as range and weight.

 

 

L> nglish and Pashto, of the Ministry of Education of the Islamic State

 

 

of Afghanistan. Handwritten in Russian on several pages presumably by

Azeri authorities, there is a list for the mujahideen to register their

 

 

personal weapons. About 100 typically Afghan (or Pakistani) names are

present such as Ferhad Abdulrazak or Nizamuddin Inatullah, by no means

of Azeri origin. But the most convincing proof is a set of photos,

mementos of the Afghan fighters, clothed in the characteristic garb, of

 

 

their stay in Azerbaijan. In many of them, Russian-made cars with Azeri

 

 

license tags are visible in the background. One was the type typically

taken by professionals at Soviet tourist sites, with the inscription of

 

 

a major northwestern Azeri city on the bottom-"Ganzha, 1993," it read.

A number of the photos appear to have been taken at the training camp

of the former 104th Airborne Division of the Soviet Army near Ganzha.

"I was trained there," says Abrahamiam. "I know this place very well. I

 

 

crawled over every millimeter of it on my belly." In the photos he

identifies an open-air cinema and a warehouse. But even without his

identification, a parachute practice jump structure is visible in the

background of one picture.

[gamavor]

Thank you ArmoArmeN! Very interesting reading!

[Takoush]

ArmoArmeN: There is a lot of information in your post which is new to me and I thank you for it!

[Nakharar]

Those companies will be more than glad to finance the next Karabagh war.