An article from April 2000 that raises many questions.
Defense & Foreign Affairs' Strategic Policy
April, 2000
Chechnya Prepares for a "Third War", Using Terrorism, the West and bin Laden
By Yossef Bodansky
Highly-reliable sources indicate that the mujahedin and other Islamist forces in Chechnya are preparing for a major escalation and expansion in the fighting. Terrorism into the heart of Russia, support from the West, and fresh support from the Osama bin Laden organization are three key elements of the new war.
Oleg Odnokolenko of the Moscow newspaper Segodnya was right when, on April 10, 2000, he called the forthcoming escalation "the start of a fundamentally new war: a full-scale third Chechen war". As was the case with the previous Chechen wars, the Islamist leadership and the local senior commanders -- particularly Shamil Basayev and Khattab -- consider terrorist strikes at the heart of Russia and, should the need arise, support from the West to be their winning weapons.
Their most recent preparations suggest an intent to this time go way beyond another round of Moscow bombing. The Chechens' new resolve and capabilities can be attributed to the recent sharp changes in the health of Osama bin Laden, particularly his kidneys.
In the early Winter of 1999-2000, bin Laden's health deteriorated markedly. He suffered debilitating pain that evolved into bouts of depression. In January 2000, bin Laden's overall situation deteriorated to the point that his closest confidantes feared imminent debilitation or even death. Arab doctors rushed to Qandahar from the Persian Gulf prescribed complex treatment that could not be found in either Afghanistan or even Pakistan. Consequently, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri resigned from the leadership of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in order to devote himself to the bin Laden organization. Zawahiri, who was one of Egypt's leading pediatricians before he became immersed in the Islamist jihad movement and went underground, also increasingly involved himself in bin Laden's health.
In January 2000, Dr al-Zawahiri arranged for an Iraqi doctor to examine bin Laden in Afghanistan. The Iraqi doctor prescribed a treatment involving dialyses, a series of shots and intravenous medicine-delivery, as well as an assortment of rear medications. A thorough search of Afghanistan led to the discovery of a Soviet dialysis machine and related equipment in the basement of a now-destroyed Kabul hospital originally built for the late President Najib and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) elite. Dr Zawahiri relied on his long-time connections with the Chechen Mafiya, which go back to early 1990s and cemented in his late 1996/early 1997 clandestine visit to Chechnya and Dagestan, to have them find and quickly deliver the spare parts for the Soviet dialysis machine and other medical equipment the Iraqi doctor required.
To avoid detection, the Chechen Mafiya smuggled the equipment from Russia and Central Asian states to Iran, ostensibly to a Tehran institution affiliated with the Iranian HizbAllah. Zawahiri then sent a three-man delegation to Tehran to deliver the dialysis equipment and some essential medicines along with a local specialist physician who volunteered to join the team treating bin Laden. The Iraqi doctor returned to Afghanistan in early February. Bin Laden was then moved to his forward headquarters near Sarobi, Laghman province (between Kabul and Jalalabad), where the medical equipment was installed.
The medical team led by the Iraqi doctor and Dr Zawahiri got to work, and within a month or so got bin Laden back on his feet to the point that he could attend brief meetings with guests at the Jalalabad area as of late February. Meanwhile, the intensive medical treatment continued in March as well. In late March 2000, bin Laden was healthy enough to make a rare public appearance. He attended a high-level meeting with the Taliban leadership convened in Laghman province in order to discuss US President Bill Clinton's forthcoming visit to Pakistan. According to witnesses, bin Laden appeared quite frail; his face looked weak and his beard bigger than usual. But he was well-informed, active and lucid throughout the lengthy meeting. A team of medics and more than 100 armed guards, mostly Arabs, surrounded bin Laden all the time.
Meanwhile, the Chechen leadership capitalized on the sense of gratitude felt by bin Laden and Dr Zawahiri. Former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbayev, Maskhadov's emissary to Pakistan and Afghanistan, was nominated Chechnya's ambassador to Afghanistan. He then traveled to Kabul, ostensibly to inaugurate the new Chechen Embassy, along with the Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawwakil. This was only a flimsy excuse since the Taliban's real capital is in Qandahar where the Chechens already maintain a group of emissaries. On his way from Pakistan to Kabul, Yandarbayev stopped in the Sarobi area where he held crucial discussions with both Mullah Omar and bin Laden on a marked increase in support for the Chechen war effort. Yandarbayev delivered a special message from the Chechen leadership to bin Laden, congratulating him on his recent recovery and thus reminding him that he "owed" the Chechens.
The Chechens' message was not lost on the Afghans and Arabs attending the meeting with Yandarbayev. The Taliban authorized a massive recruitment and training effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan for mujahedin to be sent to the Caucasus. They agreed that most of these would-be mujahedin were to be trained in the regular camps throughout eastern Afghanistan. However, a cadre of elite terrorists -- a mix of Afghan and Pakistani, Central Asian and Caucasian mujahedin -- would recieve intense and highly-specialized training in a specially-converted military camp called Kargha-1, some 12km north of Kabul. "We know that there are Chechens out there and also people from other [former-Soviet] countries receiving training," noted a senior Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official. Concurrently, bin Laden's people and the Taliban arranged for an accelerated flow of expert terrorists, mainly combat-hardened commanders, to fill the ranks of the Chechen forces depleted in the latest Russian offensives. Most important was bin Laden's assignment of expert terrorist networks in Russia and the West to conduct spectacular strikes against Russian objectives in order to build domestic and international pressure on Moscow to withdraw from the Caucasus.
Little wonder, then, that in early April 2000 the Chechen leadership appears confident in its ability to resume offensive operations against the Russian forces not only in southern Chechnya but throughout the entire Caucasus, and at the heart of Russia.
Basayev and Khattab conferred with senior commanders -- both Chechens and volunteer "Afghans" and "Bosniaks" -- and issued orders for a major escalation in and beyond Chechnya. On April 9, 2000, Shamil Basayev inspected several recently-reconstituted bases and mujahedin units in southern and eastern Chechnya. These forces were completing preparations for what Basayev called "the beginning of the Spring-Summer military campaign". He noted the mujahedin's high morale and fighting spirit. In an address to local commanders, Basayev said that Chechen forces now had "enough strength and means to deal a decisive blow to the enemy and destroy it". Basayev rejected a negotiated settlement with Moscow and stressed that "the enemy will be attacked by all available means until the Russian aggressors are expelled from the territory of the independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria". In response to a subsequent question from one of the local commanders, Basayev elaborated that "the invaders will have to be first evicted from Chechnya [by force]" before the "peace treaty" Pres. Aslan Maskhadov had mentioned might be negotiated with Moscow.
I think the most important question raised by this article is "How in the hell did Bodansky have such detailed information about Bin-Laden's day-to-day affairs, health, and appearance? I thought we didn't have any CIA agents or sources in his entire organization?
I find it interesting that we see an Iraqi doctor coming to Afghanistan to treat him in this article. Isn't that enough linkage to nuke Baghdad? Why did this story never quite reappear when it was convenient?
And was Bodansky's information on bin-Laden's health inaccurate, or has he made some kind of recovery?
As for Zawahiri and Chechnya, do a look-see into the episode where Zawahiri was arrested and imprisoned by the Russians. They claim they never figured out his real identity until after they released him six months later.
Anyone who knows the history of Sadat's assassination, knows that the Russians could not have failed to identify Zawahiri.
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