Bin Laden Puppetmasters Smoked Out In Balkans

The mid-October revelations that an Osama bin
Laden terrorist training camp is operating in the
U.S.-controlled zone of Kosovo, are only the tip of the
iceberg. Now, in a sort of ``Operation Truth,'' Macedonian
and other sources have begun to reveal publicly what until
now had been known to only a relatively small group of people,
about the narco-terrorist connections between the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) and the Taliban, and between these
two groups and high-level U.S. and British intelligence
agencies. Operation Truth is now affecting the strategic
domain, provoking a reevaluation of the conventional way of
viewing ``international terrorism.'' The path leads to
those strategists who have used terrorism as a weapon of
irregular warfare.

····The story of bin Laden's right-hand man, Ayman ``The
Doctor'' Zawahiri, and the Balkan activities of the
latter's brother, have shocked a large number of people.
How is it possible that such a high-level official of the
bin Laden gang is able to run a training camp for the KLA
near the Kosovo village of Ropotovo, in the middle of an
area controlled by the United States? How is it possible
that Zawahiri's brother, as reliable sources report, was
(and still reportedly is) in charge of KLA operations in
the KLA-occupied area of neighboring Macedonia? How is it
possible that the Zawahiri-led gang of international
mercenaries could move, without any hindrance, from
NATO-controlled Kosovo into Macedonia?

- Bin Laden And The Albanian Mafia -
····``A group of 50 mujahideen has reportedly entered
Macedonia via Kosovo and taken up positions in the
mountains of Skopaska Crna Gora nearby Skopje. They are
digging trenches and preparing the terrain,'' according to
the Macedonian daily {Dnevnik,} which quoted intelligence
sources. "`An Egyptian national, the younger brother of
Ayman al-Zawahiri--the commander of al-Qaeda responsible
for the Balkan operations--is in charge of the terrorist
groups that recently entered Macedonia.'' Intelligence
sources said that Zawahiri intends to expand the al-Qaeda
struggle in the Balkans, while his younger brother Mohamed
has been charged with recruiting Islamic fundamentalists,
to be trained for terrorist suicide actions.
····``The mujahideen gang of the [KLA's] 113 Brigade,
named Ismet Jashari, comprised of 25 to 30 people, and the
rapid intervention unit called Baruti entered the
Macedonian village of Matejce on Oct. 18 and prevented a
convoy of displaced persons from entering the village. The
terrorists had been stationed at a Kosovo
training camp near the village of Ropotovo in the
U.S.-run sector [Multinational Brigade East]. Zawahiri was
in charge of the terrorist training camp.''

- Interpol Discovers Mafia-Terror Links -
····As shocking as these revelations are, they are only
the beginning. Macedonian sources have confirmed what
{EIR} has detailed concerning the drug connection between
Afghanistan's Taliban and the ``Albania mafia.'' On Oct. 23,
Gwen McClure of Interpol's Criminal Subdivision officially
informed a group of parliamentarians from NATO countries
that Interpol has evidence that bin Laden is linked to
Albanian gangs which have taken over the growing web of
crime across Europe. Their investigations have
also shown that bin Laden deployed one of his top military
commanders for an elite KLA unit during the NATO war in
Kosovo.
····The Interpol confirmation of the direct collaboration
between bin Laden networks and the NATO-KLA operations
during the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, is further
confirmed by an article in the Swiss financial daily {Neue
Zu@aurcher Zeitung,} on Oct. 25: "According to Egyptian
and French intelligence services, in the late 1990s, bin
Laden brought 500 Arab mujahideen to Tirana [Albania].
They are reported to have fought side by side with the KLA
and to have been involved in the most brutal acts of
revenge against Serbian civilians.''
····McClure also stated that a meeting took place in
Albania, in the presence of bin Laden, according to
Albanian police. Several Algerian terrorists were present
at the meeting. "It was during this meeting,'' she
stressed, "that many structures and networks were
established for propaganda and fundraising activities and
for providing the Algerian armed groups with logistical
support.'' During and immediately after the Kosovo war,
when the KLA took over the province, heroin and weapons
trafficking exploded unchecked. The so-called ``Albanian
mafia'' ended up controlling 80% of the heroin
distribution in Western Europe, when Kosovo had become a
NATO protectorate.

····The criminal and the terrorist networks have become
an indistinguishable entity, with a multiplying
destructive effect. ``These crime syndicates have formed
alliances of convenience and are willing to cooperate or
make business arrangements with other organized crime
groups,'' McClure told the parliamentarians. She also said
that Interpol has evidence of the involvement of
anti-Russia Chechnya separatists in the crime/terrorist
ring.
····Al-Zawahiri's brother is most likely right now inside
Macedonia leading a gang of ideological mercenaries in
another major KLA assault against the country. Al-Zawahiri
was in Albania participating in the KLA offensive against
Yugoslavia in 1999. According to the Arabic daily
{Al-Sharq al-Awsat} of April 16, 1999, "Sources close to
the fundamentalist tendency in London have revealed that
Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of the [Egyptian] `Armed Jihad'
organization, is currently'' in Albania. One source
reported, `"Al-Zawahiri and Abu-al-Faraj travelled to
Albania some weeks ago, heading a company of Arab
mujahideen.'' The sources quoted by the newspaper said
that al-Zawahiri was living '`in tragic conditions in
Albania'' because Albania `"is now in the grip of U.S.
intelligence.'' Al-Zawahiri was tried {in absentia} in
a military court in Cairo as a prime suspect in the case
of the ``returnees from Albania,'' a group of Egyptian
terrorists who had been active in Albania.

- `The Afghan Trap' -
····However, despite the ``grip of U.S. intelligence,''
al-Zawahiri was not arrested while ``under siege'' in
Albania. He was able to return to Afghanistan. Why?
····Observers call attention to a short article which
appeared from the Egyptian Mideast News Agency on Sept. 8,
1996, entitled "Al-Jihad Terrorist Claims Strong
CIA Terror Ties.'' It read: "An important cadre in the
al-Jihad organization, who has returned from Afghanistan,
has disclosed that there are strong relations between the
CIA and British intelligence on one side, and terrorist
leaders in Egypt and the Arab countries. Ahmad Rashid, the
former ideologue of the Jihad, said that {Ayman
al-Zawahiri, the military commander of the Jihad
organization, had asked the CIA for $50 million} early in
the 1990s to stage a coup in Egypt'' (emphasis added).
····Other reports say that it was actually a man called
al-Amriki (``the American'' in Arabic) who made the offer.
The $50 million offer was accompanied with the assurance
that the United States would not interfere with an
``Islamist'' takeover of Egypt, and allegedly proposed a
{modus vivendi} between U.S. forces and the ``Islamists''
in the Balkans.
····Reportedly, al-Amriki was known among Islamist
circles as a CIA go-between to various militant groups
especially connected to the Afghan Jihad. And, connections
among the CIA, British intelligence, and Afghan ``fighters''
are nothing secret or surprising, given that Western
agencies provided support, training, logistics, and
financing for those who were willing to fight against the
Soviets in Afghanistan.
····In January 1998, in an interview with the French
journal {Le Nouvel Observateur}, former U.S. National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, an advocate of a
``Clash of Civilizations'' between the West and Islam,
confirmed that, indeed, secret CIA support to the
mujahideen started six months before the date given
officially. The secret support was intended as a
provocation to the Russians, to lure them into the
"Afghan trap.'' Brzezinski stated: "According to the
official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen
began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army
invaded Afghanistan, on Dec. 24, 1979. But the reality,
secretly guarded until now, is completely the opposite:
Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter
signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents
of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I
wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him
that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet
military intervention.''
····When asked if he regretted that provocation today,
Brzezinski replied, ``Regret what? That secret operation
was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the
Russians into the Afghan trap--the day that the Soviets
officially crossed the border, I wrote to President
Carter: `We now have the opportunity of giving to the
U.S.S.R. its Vietnam War.' Indeed, for almost ten years,
Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable by the
government, a conflict that brought about the
demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet
empire. What is most important to the history of the
world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire?
Some whipped-up Muslims or the liberation of Central
Europe and the end of the Cold War?''

- The Strange Saga Of `Mohamed The American' -
····So, it is not hard to see why the ``Islamists'' would
have an open channel with Western agencies including the
CIA. The man who reportedly presented to al-Zawahiri the
$50 million proposal and the encouragement to destabilize
Egypt, is known as Abu Mohamed al-Amriki, ``Mohamed the
American.''
····An Egyptian military man, al-Amriki joined the Jihad
organization in 1981, the year that the Jihad claimed
credit for the Oct. 6, 1981 assassination of President Anwar
Sadat. Among the persons arrested for that assassination
was Ayman al-Zawahiri, charged with illegal weapons
possession.
····The stories of al-Amriki and al-Zawahiri tend to
intersect not only in Afghanistan and Egypt, but also in
the United States. It was al-Amriki who organized the
visit of al-Zawahiri to New York, California, and Texas,
to collect money, officially, for the families of the
Afghan war victims. In reality, part of the money,
according to the courtroom testimony of Khalid
Abu-al-Dhahab in Cairo 1999, was used to finance the
bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.
····Al-Amriki reportedly began his career as the elusive
``American'' in 1981, when he first arrived in the United
States immediately after having joined the Jihad
organization, and was enlisted in a U.S. Special Forces
school for foreign officers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
In 1985, after leaving the Egyptian Army, he came to
California and married. In 1986, he joined the U.S. Army.
As a sergeant, he was stationed again at Fort Bragg's
Special Warfare center, and in the late 1980s he popped up
at an Afghan refugee center in Brooklyn, New York. There
he gave combat training to Afghan and Muslim recruits who
were to be sent back to Afghanistan to fight the Russians.
Al-Amriki in 1992 went to Pakistan and Afghanistan to train
the bin Laden men, providing especially ``military and
basic explosives training,'' according to U.S. court
records.
····Al-Amriki's terrorist career took off from there,
putting him in contact and in a position of leadership
with virtually every major Islamist terrorist
organization.

- Macedonians Told, `Hands Off!' -
····Based on just the short background outlined here, it
is not surprising that the Macedonians pursuing the
al-Zawahiri track have come under strong pressure not to
investigate. However, sources have told {EIR} that the
track will not be abandoned; quite the contrary. A deputy
director in Macedonian intelligence was even quoted in an
interview in the Canadian {Halifax Herald,} stressing: ``We
have already provided a substantial dossier to the CIA,
and obtaining further proof [of the link between bin Laden
and the KLA] is our ministry's number-one priority.''
····The intelligence official revealed that the
Macedonian forces had contained the KLA assault in May,
despite the KLA's superior armaments, because
Ukraine supplied helicopter gunships. However, the KLA was
able to neutralize this Macedonian advantage. He said,
``Shortly after that, our helicopter pilots reported being
targeted by sophisticated [U.S. made] Stinger
[anti-aircraft] missiles. It is our information that the
[KLA] received these Stingers from their mujahideen
connections in Afghanistan.''
····Despite the information supplied by the Macedonians
to the CIA, they haven't received so much as a "thank
you.'' Instead, the Macedonian intelligence officials say
that the major obstacle to their investigation comes
exactly from NATO, including direct interference from the
United States.

BlackJade writes: "I think that http://www.makedonija.tv/ is a Macedonia news website. There was no date of publication listed on this web page, but this article was also listed under Executive Intelligence Review--Volume 28, Number 43, November 9, 2001

I think that Umberto Pascali has done some excellent research on this, which has been collaborated by other sources. Brzezinski evidently saw two decades of warfare in Afghanistan and thousands of Bin Laden's victims throughout the world for the last 20 years, such as at the WTC last year, to be an acceptable price to pay to further US moves on the "Grand Chessboard." After the fall of the Soviet Union, OBL's network was and is still used by the CIA in the Balkans, so this rationale that OBL was a necessary evil for the "breakup of the Soviet empire" is a sham.

The Northern Alliance have superceded the old Taliban regime as the drug lords of Afghanistan. CIA assets now control the drug trade all the way from Afghanistan to the Balkans. Ayman Zawahiri with all these various Central Asia and Balkan & CIA connections is very much involved in this drug trade. Re: 'War on terror' moves toward Iran

This deal which al-Amriki as a CIA agent made with Ayman Zawahiri was also confirmed by Yossef Bodansky, although Bodansky tries to spin this as "protection money," as opposed to a strategic alliance. THE PRICE OF WASHINGTON'S BOSNIA POLICY

This also confirms the fact that Ayman Zawahiri's brother was a KLA leader. BALKAN - ALBANIA - KOSOVO - HEROIN - JIHAD