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Monday, April 12, 2010

Iran gets chemical Warheads for its al Mahdaviaya Attack Plan

Iran has reportedly been building an attack plan which would Occupy Iraq and occupy Jordan, among other countries. The plan, code named Al-Mahdaviya has apparently been underway for some time, and is regularly updated. I personally believe the plan, as reported, is too ambitious to accomplish soon, and will require a generation to implement. The details, if true provides great insight into the plans of the Shiite government, if not the people. Those looking at the evidence that such a plan is underway would note that Iran has been successfully accumulating weapons to support such an attack.

For example, there is a recent report that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards has armed its Russian SS4 surface-to-surface missiles with chemical warheads.

According to the report, the chemicals in the warheads are mustard, sarin, and cyanide gas; the missiles have a range of 2,000 km and are aimed at the Gulf countries and other Arab countries.

There are many sources for the report but they all seem to all draw on the March 3, 2010 report of the Kuwaiti daily paper Al-Siyassa which allegedly quoted an anti-Iran Ahwazi group called The Islamic Sunni-Ahwazi Organization.

In Africa, the question is a serious one: Does Iran plan to invade and occupy its neighbors?

-Shimron Issachar

Ahwazi Organization: Iran Is Threatening Gulf States with SSMs Armed with Chemical Warheads

Add to this the report that Iran has been building an offense plan code named Al-Mahdaviya . Ipersonally believe the plan is too ambishous to accomplish soon, and will require a generation to implement.

On March 3, 2010, the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa published a report[1] by an anti-Iran Ahwazi group called The Islamic Sunni-Ahwazi Organization, which said that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) had armed its Russian SS4 surface-to-surface (SSM) missiles with chemical warheads. According to the report, the chemicals in the warheads are mustard, sarin, and cyanide gas; the missiles have a range of 2,000 km and are aimed at the Gulf countries and other Arab countries.[2] It also stated that the IRGC has stepped up biological weapons research at the Damghan laboratories.
The Ahwazi group also claimed in the report that Iran has a military project called Al-Mahdaviya under which Iran would occupy Iraq as well as Jordan by advancing along five axes. The main points of the plan include the use of the Arab Ahwaz district as a forward operating base and jumping-off point for the occupation; the plan also has intelligence, economic, and cultural/propaganda aspects. The organization stated in the report that Iran is planning to uproot millions of the Arab residents of western Ahwaz so that it can secure the border with Iraq, and defend its oil and gas fields in the region.
Ahwazi Organization: The IRGC Armed SS4 Missiles with Fragmentation Warheads and with Sarin, Mustard, and Cyanide Gas
The report states that in its striving for regional hegemony, Iran is using terrorism, developing nuclear, missile, and satellite projects, and operating on military, propaganda, and sectarian levels. The group added in the report that it had uncovered an Iranian plan to turn Ahwaz province, with the largest Sunni Arab population in Iran, into a military intelligence base, and to send a large number of Iranian Shi’ite clerics to the province to wage a sectarian propaganda campaign and to brainwash young Arabs there. According to the report, the plan is aimed at using the Arab province as a base for gathering information and spying against the Arab countries in the Gulf, using espionage networks based there, and in order to threaten the security of Iraq and of the Gulf.
The report quotes an IRGC source who confirmed that the SS4 SSMs had all been brought to the Kalla Doz (sic) military factory near the city of Karaj, which is suspected of carrying out nuclear and chemical activity. The source also said that conventional warheads for some of these missiles had been brought to the Aghajari military chemical plant, located east of Ahwaz between the cities of Al-Amidiyya and Behabahan, where these warheads had been armed with fragmentation charges and with Sarin, mustard, and cyanide gas manufactured in Iranian factories capable of an output of several tons of these substances.
According to the source, in the summer of 2008, IRGC commands had received secret orders to set up the missiles on moving platforms near the cities of Al-Hamidiyya and Al-Khafajiyya, and to aim them at the Arab Gulf states. He said that the missiles could reach targets such as ports, airports, and oil and gas industrial zones, and that they had especially deadly potential against population centers.
The source confirmed that the IRGC is again working on construction and expansion of the military Darkhovin plants, and that the plant closest to the cities of Abadan and Al-Falahiyya and to the Karun River, which operates on light water, would be completed in 2013. The report said that the plant, which is about 7 square km in area, is operating secretly as part of Iran’s nuclear program.
The report states that on November 29, 2009, the Ahwazi group’s field command had warned in the Kuwaiti Al-Siyassa daily that dozens of Chinese and Russian experts and scientists specializing in the manufacture of conventional and biological weapons were already at work in “secret camps” near the Darhkovin facilities. According to the report, the source added that Iran had a wide-scale germ warfare program, of which the Lavizan site north of Tehran had been the most important element until it was uncovered.
The report said that currently the IRGC is stepping up research for its military biological project at the Damghan laboratory in Samnan.
Ahwazi Organization: Iraq Has Military Plan for Invading Iraq and Jordan along Five Routes of Advance
The report states that in 2005, the IRGC operational headquarters prepared a plan for attacking Jordan via Iraq, and that a map outlining this plan was leaked to the Ahwazi organization in May of that year. The organization assesses that the plan was formulated following Iran’s success in training death squads in Iraq and in spreading anarchy there, and following the warnings voiced in December 2004 by Jordanian King ‘Abdallah II regarding the threat posed by the “Shi’ite Iranian crescent” in the region.
The five axes of advance detailed in the report are: 1. Piranshahr to Rowanduz; 2. Ghasre-Shirin to Khanaqin; 3. Mehran to Al-Kut; 4. Ahwazi Basatin to Al-Amara; 5. Abadan to Basra. The report claims that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei approved the plan and instructed the IRGC to prepare for its implementation, and that it was subsequently updated to include additional countries.
The goals of the Mahdaviya project, according to the report, include the following: suppressing the Sunni movements in Iran, especially the Ahwazi movements operating in the west of the country and the Balouchi movements operating in the east, and quashing their military activity against the Iranian regime; preparing for mass abductions and killings of dissidents in Ahwaz province; disguising the wide-scale settlement and transfer activities being carried out in Ahwaz by the Iranian regime; militarizing Ahwaz and turning it into a sectarian protectorate and forward base for intelligence and military activity, in order to promote Iran’s political and military goals in the region; carrying out structured propaganda campaigns in the Arabian Gulf and the Middle East, aimed at inculcating a spirit of defeatism and submission to Iran as an imperial force and at spreading Shi’ite thought throughout the Arabian Gulf; turning Ahwaz into a safe haven for all the Iranian-aided movements in the region, and into a stronghold for most of the Iranian associations and organizations operating in Arab countries, according to the model of the movements and parties that Iran has planted in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
Citing the IRGC source, the report adds that Mohammad Mousavi Jazayeri, who is Khamenei’s representative in Ahwaz and the acting governor of the province, directs the Mahdaviya project and the wide-scale campaign for spreading the Shi’a throughout the Gulf region.
Ahwazi Organization: Regime Leaders and Senior IRGC and Intelligence Officials Held Secret Meeting in Ahwaz
The report says that the project’s military-intelligence dimension was secretly put into action in 2003 on direct orders from Khamenei, and was expanded after a March 2006 meeting between Khamenei and Jazayeri during the former’s visit to Ahwaz. It is also claimed that leaders of the Iranian regime held a large conference in the province in April 2009. At the periphery of this conference, which was chaired by Jazayeri, a small group of regime leaders and senior IRGC and intelligence officials met at the Basij headquarters in Ahwaz, located at a university in the province’s administrative capital. Among those present were Ali Shafei, a commander of the Iranian Hizbullah in Ahwaz; Mohsen Araki, former head of the revolutionary courts in the province; Ali Fallahian, founder of the Islamic Republic party and former Iranian intelligence minister; and Mohsen Khaidari, Friday prayer leader in Ahwaz.
It is stated that a committee was formed to facilitate the implementation of the sectarian-intelligence plan, supervised by Jazayeri and headed by Majid Alavi. The latter, the report says, operated in Saudi Arabia and Sudan for eight years as a secret agent of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry. Shortly after the April 2009 meeting, in July 2009, he was appointed acting Intelligence Minister in Ahmadinejad’s government, following the resignation of Mohseni-Ajei.
It is claimed that IRGC official Ali Qomi, former Iranian consul in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was placed in charge of the project’s financial committee, while Mohammad Hossein Faroughi, former charge d’affair in the Iranian representation in Kuwait, was appointed as the project’s first director in the Gulf, in charge of recruiting personnel outside Iran and coordinating the activity of various Iranian networks in the region.
At the April 2009 meeting, the participants approved Jazayeri’s proposal to establish the project headquarters in Ahwaz and to place Ali Fallahian in charge of the project’s security aspects. (His other tasks, according to the report, include overseeing the training of foreign recruits alongside Hizbullah members in camps in western Ahwaz, smuggling arms into specific areas in the Gulf, and arranging visas for operatives entering and departing Iran).
The report also claims that Ruhollah Hosseinian, a security advisor to Ahmadinejad and one of the founders of the armed Iranian organization Ansar-e Hizbullah, “who has expertise in the area of assassinations and abductions,” has been appointed acting commander of Ansar-e Hizbullah in Ahwaz. Working under his command is General Sarhank Karim Karimi Tebah, a senior official in Iran’s foreign intelligence apparatus, who in 2002-2006 operated in Saudi Arabia as a spy for the IRGC.
It is claimed further that Hosseinian appointed senior IRGC official Hassan Farhan Oda Khaledi as commander of the Fedayan-e Imam-i Ali organization, whose headquarters are located in Ahwaz. This is a secret military-intelligence organization founded in July 2007, whose members operate in plainclothes. Two thousand of them participated in training activities of the Ashura Brigades in Darkhovin in November 2009.
Ahwazi Organization: The Regime Plans to Iranize Ahwaz
The report also refers to the project’s cultural and propaganda dimensions, and the plan to Iranize Ahwaz. It claims that, under Jazayeri’s supervision, clerics and mosque imams use various media outlets to spread Shi’ite and pro-regime propaganda, as part of an attempt to carry out a comprehensive cultural revolution in the province. It further states that there is a plan to evacuate 15 villages and cities in Ahwaz, inhabited by some four million Arabs, for the purpose of converting Basatin into a tourism and free trade hub with an international airport. This, in order to create investment opportunities for IRGC-owned companies, and in order to replace the area’s Sunni Arab population with Shi’ites, with an eye to protecting the province’s numerous oil and gas fields.
Endnotes:
[1] Al-Siyassa (Kuwait), March 3, 2010. http://www.al-seyassah.com/Portals/0/pdf/10/Mar/03/29.pdf
[2] It should be noted that in a May 10, 2008 Friday sermon, Expediency Council Secretary Hashemi Rafsanjani indicated that Iran possessed chemical weapon capabilities, but said that it had chosen not to employ them during the Iran-Iraq war despite Iraq’s use of such weapons against Iran. Rafsanjani said: “In our battles with the Saddam [Hussein] regime, we proved that we do not use forbidden and unconventional weapons. [The Iraqis] targeted us with chemical weapons for years, and even now there are daily reports in our press about deaths resulting from [those] chemical attacks. Years have passed, but people are still suffering from [the consequences] of these attacks. Iran could have retaliated in kind, but refrained from doing so in order to avoid harming the Iraqi people. www.dnf.ir, May 10, 2008.

The Rest @ Free Iran Now

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Telesom People

Telesom Company
Telesom Company



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Industry: Telephony & Wireless

Telesom is the leading telecommunication company in Somaliland.[claims 3000 + employees] It provides both fixed and mobile services with more than 25,000 Mobile subscribers, and 20,000 Fixed line subscribers + 2,000 Internet subscribers. Telesom operates in all major cities and towns in Somaliland. Telesom Somaliland was founded in 2001 in Hargeisa, Somaliland by a group of Somalis living both inside and outside the ( www.telesom.net )

List Company


Mahamud Jama, ISP Manager, Djibouti
Omar Mohamed, Core Network Engineer, IREG (International Roaming Expert Group) Rwanda
Abdifatah omar, IN Engineer Djibouti
Abdulhakim Omer, Engineer, Djibiuti
Engineer at Telesom
MANAGER at Oscar Trading Company
Engineer at Telesom Company

Engg. Mahathiir, GSM-Engineer, Somalia,
interested in Telecom Grid of Pakistan

Monday, March 15, 2010

Breath in Mogadishu Battle, More to Come

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Date: 15 Mar 2010


NAIROBI, 15 March 2010 (IRIN) - Five days of fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have left residents without food, cut off from their homes and unable to bury their dead, civil society leaders in the city said.

"We cannot go to some of the worst-affected areas and for all we know people may be buried under the rubble of what used to be their homes," Asha Sha'ur, a civil society activist, told IRIN. The fighting had displaced hundreds of families, she added.

In many areas of the city, people were unable to access their homes or even bury their dead. The fighting had also cut off aid deliveries.

"What little assistance that used to come in is no longer there, so they [civilians] are on their own," Sha'ur added. "It is a tragedy but no one seems to care. Imagine people with small children unable to go out and buy food or milk."

Ali Sheikh Yassin, deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organization (EHRO), told IRIN the fighting between government troops and insurgent which began on 9 March "had been the most intense since May 2009".

Local sources estimate that more than 100 people had died before relative calm returned to the city on 15 March. "I would say this was the worst [fighting]," Yassin told IRIN.

Some residents, he added, had ventured out of their homes on 15 March to assess the damage and bury their dead.

"There is a feeling among the population that this is not the end and worse is yet to come," he said. Both sides, he explained, were mobilizing, with tanks belonging to the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) dotting the city.

A medical source said the hospitals had been inundated. "We are barely coping," she told IRIN. "When you think there are no more, more are brought in."

On the move

The fighting, between AMISOM-backed government forces and the Islamist group Al-Shabab, broke out when Al-Shabab fighters attacked government positions in north Mogadishu, a local journalist told IRIN.

"By Friday [12 March], the fighting had spread to most parts of north Mogadishu. The Yaqshid, Karan, Abdiasis and Wardhigley districts were the hardest hit," he added.

By 15 March, hundreds of families were on the move, "taking advantage of the break in the shelling". According to the journalist, many were joining those in the Afgoye corridor - already home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people - while others were heading to Balad, 30km north of Mogadishu.

While the death toll was more than 100, another 245 people were injured, the medical source said.

"These are the ones we can account for; there may be many more who are unaccounted for," she said. "I am sure that once we have access to the epicentre of the fighting the death toll will be much higher."

Most of the injured, she said, were children, citing the case of Salado Ali in Medina, Mogadishu's main hospital. Her six-year-old son and husband were injured when their home in the northern Karan district was hit by a shell.

"The doctors have removed the pieces from the boy's stomach," she told IRIN by telephone. "They tell me he is stable."

Salado, whose husband was in another wing of the hospital with a less serious injury, said: "I don't think there is anyone left in our neighbourhood." A selection of IRIN reports are posted on ReliefWeb. Find more IRIN news and analysis at http://www.irinnews.org

Une sélection d'articles d'IRIN sont publiés sur ReliefWeb. Trouvez d'autres articles et analyses d'IRIN sur http://www.irinnews.org

This article does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. Refer to the IRIN copyright page for conditions of use.

Cet article ne reflète pas nécessairement les vues des Nations Unies. Voir IRIN droits d'auteur pour les conditions d'utilisation.

The Rest @ IRIN

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Friday, March 12, 2010

Last Post for a While

I have been writing this blog since 2006. It began when I was doing business intelligence work, gathering information about one of the technical industries in some East Africa Countries. What I came across was information leading to a conclusion that I still hold, and that that al Qaeda has a clear and specific strategy targeting Africa.

It was not new. Bill Moyers sums it up as well as anyone:

"When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan in early 1989, bin Laden and Azzam decided that their new organization should not dissolve. They established what they called a base (al Qaeda) as a potential general headquarters for future jihad. However, bin Laden, now the clear emir of al Qaeda, and Azzam differed on where the organization's future objectives should lie. Azzam favored continued fighting in Afghanistan until there was a true Islamist government, while bin Laden wanted to prepare al Qaeda to fight anywhere in the world. When Azzam was killed in 1989, bin Laden assumed full charge of al Qaeda. " - Moyers Journal

What I am saying is that their was, and is, a specific Islamist plan for Africa, with the al Qaeda as the tip of the spear.

In 2006 no one was really looking at Africa and the Islamist Agenda, so I began to track the movement of key people and groups working this agenda. Frankly I was surprised at the transparency and sophistication of the plan, how open they were about their agenda, and how ignored by the Western World they were. Their moneymaking activities, their large business and in some cases Royal funding supporters were very obvious.

It is clear now that their are many, many western eyes on Africa and the Islamist agenda, both in Africa and around the world, and so I am no longer needed. I want to give one, mostly final, summary for the analysts out there.

First, I think the Long War is almost half over. The West currently has the upper hand as can be seen in Pakistan, but it will eventually move to Africa in less than a year.

Somalia is still in a stalemate. Somaliland will soon be recognized, and the corrupt TFG group will be abandoned, since they seem to be inherently incapable of caring for their own people in a peaceful without tribal lenses. This does not mean that war will stop in Somalia. The Middle East will continue to fund psalmist groups, who will tray and export the Islamist war into Ethiopia and Kenya. The West will continue to find ways to fight them.

The next place for the war to spring up will be in South Sudan, which will vote to secede in less than a year, and is preparing for the inevitable attack from the North when this happens. Both sides are even now arming for this war. This event will be the fulcrum that shifts the focus of the war from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq into Africa.


West Africa's local wars (Morroco, Algeria, Mauritania, etc) will continue to fight, and they will continue to take money from the al qaeda or whoever else will fund them. . AQIM's network of recruiters can be hunted down and stopped. However, the purchase (some call it recruitment) of suicide bomber children from poor west african families, will be attempted again.

The Islamist Agenda will ultimately fail in Africa, but not because of any Western power, but because African's will never fully accept the Salafiyya Dawa. The Sufi's will never submit, the Christians will continue to grow, since it's aims are clearly peacfull, but the Sunni missionary work, which sends islamist agents in to establish relationships with local Muslim leaders, are even now carefully watched by every African country's intelligence service.

US ( AFRICOM) UK, French and Russian agendas are already in play, but China will try their hand at mediation, since the buy the Majority of Sudan's oil exports.

China: the Great Asian Father

China 's investment in Africa has grown exponentially in the last four years. They are spending lots of money, but they are very new and still significantly imperialistic in their approach. They are simply buying as many raw materials as they can from Africa. They are soon to discover that Africans expect more than money for their resources, they see them as the new "White Father"

Human and Weapon's trafficking will continue until Africa, Unless Africa herself comes to believe she can stop it. Local wars, currently the Congo will continue to spring up. The UN now has more troops in Africa than they ever had, and I see no end in site.


Dough Farah, Creeping Sharia, the Long War Journal, Global Security,keep up the good work, I will keep reading your stuff. Also thanks to the brave journalists in Somalia who keep writing , and keep paying the price.


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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Viktor Bout and Chichakli Indicted

Come on Richard, give me a comment....

Shimron Issachar

The U.S. Justice Department today handed down a new indictment against Viktor Bout and his Syrian-American partner Richard Chichakli, alleging the Merchant of Death with laundering money and attempting to buy two aircraft in the Unites States through a series of front companies.

The indictment may add to Bout's legal woes, and certainly is a blow to Chichakli, who has been happily holed in Moscow, with occasional trips to Damascus while using his website to mock the U.S. government, along with you truly and others. The indictment and Interpol alert will likely keep him holed up in Moscow, at least for a while.

Chichakli, who prided himself on his ability to create fetching fruit platters, fled the United States when his assets were frozen by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets control. He used Lufthansa frequent flier miles to purchase his ticket, as he had no money available, and then proceeded on to Syria, before joining Viktor in Moscow.

Bout, of course, is still in a Thai jail, awaiting an appeals court decision on whether he can be extradited to the United States to stand trial for attempts to knowingly sell surface to air missiles and other lethal equipment to undercover agents posing as FARC operatives. Last year a lower court ruled that Bout could not be extradited, and the appeals court ruling will be final.

The charges may be used to try give the Thai court more reason to authorized Bout's extradition to the United States. It will also certainly make Chichakli, who helped Bout set up his operations in the UAE in the 1990s while acting as his accountant, a less mobile figure.

Bout's attempt to buy the aircraft show how mobile his network - which supplied the Taliban in Afghanistan, the FARC in Colombia and other terrorist groups - had become. The indictment alleges Bout and Chichakli wired some $1.7 million through the United States on behalf of a front company named Samar Airlines, to purchase two Boeing aircraft in the United States.

"Viktor Bout was originally charged in March 2008 with conspiring to kill Americans by selling millions of dollars worth of weapons to Colombia-based narco-terrorists. Further investigation has revealed additional criminal activities by Bout including money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy. The additional charges contained in the newly unsealed superseding indictment amply illustrate the extraordinary breadth of Bout's deadly criminal enterprise," said DEA administrator Michele Leonhart.

The move violated the executive order that banned any U.S. company or bank from doing business with Bout. The companies doing business with Bout were not fully identified and the indictment alleges that both Bout and Chichakli hid their involvement in Samar Airlines in order to avoid sanctions.

It is not clear what the aircraft would be used for. Bout's aging fleet of Soviet era aircraft had suffered a series of accidents, where difficult to maintain and costly to keep running. Perhaps that is one of the reasons he was keen to move over to Boeings.

"Viktor Bout allegedly made a career of arming bloody conflicts and supporting rogue regimes across multiple continents, even using the U.S. banking system to secretly finance a private fleet of aircraft. The United Nations and the United States have long-standing sanctions against Bout that stem from, among other things, his support of the most violent and destabilizing conflicts in recent African history. Until his arrest in March 2008, Bout had found a way to circumvent these sanctions, successfully evading the rule of law. This Office is committed to working with our partners in the United States, at the United Nations, and around the world to bring transnational criminals like Viktor Bout to justice," said U.S. Attorney PREET BHARARA.
POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH

al Shabaab arrest Hizbul Islam -Wadana Street Fighting

MOGADISHU (Mareeg)—Al Shabaab militants have arrested three Hizbul Islam officials in Mogadishu on Monday accusing of being behind roadside bomb that targeted al Shabaab officials. Fu’aad Mohamed Qalaf and other foreign al Shabaab official survived a landmine that exploded a car they were traveling Bar Ubah neighborhood near Bakaro market in Mogadishu on Sunday evening. Residents say al Shabaab captured the officials from Bakaro market in Mogadishu saying they will bring before a court.

Sporadic fighting between the two groups started in Wadnaha Street in Mogadishu after the incident. Residents in Mogadishu have expressed concern about the new tension between the two allied groups who have been jointly fighting against the Somali government since May last year. If heavy between al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam starts in Mogadishu it will be a chance to Somali fragile government which is preparing a big offensive against the rebel groups.

The Rest @ Maraeerg Online

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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Viktor Bout and Chichakli - New indictrments

A New Indictment for Viktor Bout and his American Partner
By Douglas Farah

The U.S. Justice Department today handed down a new indictment against Viktor Bout and his Syrian-American partner Richard Chichakli, alleging the Merchant of Death with laundering money and attempting to buy two aircraft in the Unites States through a series of front companies.

The indictment may add to Bout's legal woes, and certainly is a blow to Chichakli, who has been happily holed in Moscow, with occasional trips to Damascus while using his website to mock the U.S. government, along with yours truly and others. The indictment and Interpol alert will likely keep him holed up in Moscow, at least for a while.

Chichakli, who prided himself on his ability to create fetching fruit platters, fled the United States when his assets were frozen by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets control. He used Lufthansa frequent flier miles to purchase his ticket, as he had no money available, and then proceeded on to Syria, before joining Viktor in Moscow.

Bout, of course, is still in a Thai jail, awaiting an appeals court decision on whether he can be extradited to the United States to stand trial for attempts to knowingly sell surface to air missiles and other lethal equipment to undercover agents posing as FARC operatives. Last year a lower court ruled that Bout could not be extradited, and the appeals court ruling will be final.

The charges may be used to try give the Thai court more reason to authorized Bout's extradition to the United States. It will also certainly make Chichakli, who helped Bout set up his operations in the UAE in the 1990s while acting as his accountant, a less mobile figure.

Bout's attempt to buy the aircraft show how mobile his network - which supplied the Taliban in Afghanistan, the FARC in Colombia and other terrorist groups - had become. The indictment alleges Bout and Chichakli wired some $1.7 million through the United States on behalf of a front company named Samar Airlines, to purchase two Boeing aircraft in the United States. My full blog is here.


The Rest @ Counter Terrosim Blog by Doug Farah
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