The Boston Bombing and Dealey Plaza

[Paul Rigby]

The surviving patsy, it seems, is all set to get a defence worthy of James Earl Ray or Sirhan Sirhan:

Lawyer who defended Unabomber, Loughner to represent Tsarnaev

Monday, April 29, 2013

Boston Herald

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/04/lawyer_who_defended_unabomber_loughner_to_represent_tsarnaev

By Jordan Graham, Matt Stout

The lawyer who got life sentences for a string of mass killers — Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Tucson shooter Jared Loughner and Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph — has been added to the defense team for accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Judy Clarke, a San Diego lawyer who has built a reputation for working out plea deals and sparing her high-profile clients the death penalty, was approved by a federal judge today to join the group of lawyers representing Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old accused of working with his brother to set off a pair of deadly bombs at this month’s Boston Marathon.

Clarke is a past president of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She was part of the defense teams that worked out plea deals for include Kaczynski, who pleaded to three killings and 10 bombing-related charges; Jared Loughner, who pleaded guilty to killing six people in the Arizona shooting that injured then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords; and Eric Rudolph, who pleaded guilty to several attacks that killed two and wounded more than 100 people, including bombings of the Atlanta Olympics and abortion clinics and a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta and Birmingham, Ala.

In allowing Clarke onto the case, Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler wrote in an order filed today that she “has more experience in federal capital cases,” and her “background, knowledge and experience enable her to provide adequate representation to the defendant.”

Bowler, in the same order, also denied the addition of David Bruck, a professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and director of the school’s death penalty defense clinic, but left the door open for him to join the defense later “in the event of an indictment and subject to a further showing under the law and the facts to support such an appointment.”

Efforts to reach Clarke weren’t immediately successful. Miriam Conrad, the head of the Boston federal defender’s office, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

And, yes, they've already started tree pruning on Elm Street, Boston:

Source: Boston bomb suspect says brother was brains behind attack

By Jake Tapper and Matt Smith, CNN

23 April 2013

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/22/us/boston-attack

Among the pieces of evidence collected from Boylston Street during the past week was a tree that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have leaned against before the bombing, according to a source who receives regular intelligence briefings on the Boston bombings. The source said the tree -- located at the site of the second blast -- was removed along with the surrounding grate, where the explosive device's circuit board was found.

[Len Colby]

Just want to toss out some impressions, as this situation becomes increasingly troubling --

Apparently, just as the FBI was getting somewhere with their questioning, AG Holder steps in and makes sure DT is read his Miranda rights. Of course, once that is done, he quits talking on advice of his lawyer.

DT is determined to be treated not as an 'enemy combatant', whatever that means, but as a normal criminal with federal charges filed against him.

Then, people DT and Tamerlan might possibly, or conceivably, have been involved with, who might have provided them with information and/or practice to assure that their attack was successful, seem to be dropping like flies at the hands of the Russians.

Oh, and the Russians were the ones who provided intelligence to FBI which they chose to 'ignore', including at least one wiretap of the Mother, who may have been egging the boys on.

So, do we in fact actually have a situation comparable to LHO and the JFK assassination where there are 'two lone nuts' as opposed to a bone fide conspiracy?

Richly ironic that we have a forum member bitching that the Obama administration is being too protective of a citizen's constitutional right's, one of our moderators thinks our president isnt much better than Hitler. It isn't surprising though that she is misinformed, it was was the magistrate's decision not the AG's to inform him of his rights. And though we have some right-wing pundits going on about trying Tsaranaev as an “enemy combatant” I've not seen any legal experts doing so, he is a US citizen arrested in the US for committing a crime on US soil. Unlike Jose Padilha there is evidence directly commecting him to a larger terrorist organization let alone a foreign one. But even the Bush administration gave up on trying Padilha as an “enemy combatant”, one federal district court ruled this was legal another that it wasn't.

Oh yes and the Russians never provided any intel on either brother let alone the mother to the FBI or CIA, they ASKED those agencies for information about Tamerlan, supposedly they did not respond to the former's request for more information. The wiretap of the mom was only given to the USG a couple of days ago, I.e. AFTER the bombings.

[Len Colby]

Like this one, Len, it's a real goer: Chechen terrorists bomb homeland of sponsors of Chechen terrorism in order to win more support from the country they've just bombed.

I tried to do the genius of this line of reasoning justice, but I suspect I've fallen short.

Some missions, it would appear, really are impossible.

That doesn't make much sense does it? Explain to us how the MIC/FoD/ZoG/MIBH etc benefited from this incident.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Len Colby

[Paul Rigby]

‘Uncle Ruslan’ aided terrorists from CIA official’s home

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Daniel Hopsicker

http://www.madcowprod.com/2013/04/29/uncle-ruslan-aid-to-terrorists-from-cia-officials-home/

The uncle of the accused Boston Marathon bombers incorporated, in 1995, a company called the "Congress of Chechen International Organizations."

Even as the company was sending aid to Islamic terrorists in Chechnya, its listed address was in the home of former top CIA official Graham Fuller.

Ruslan Tsarni was listed as the company's resident agent. The company's address was 11114 Whisperwood Ln in Rockville MD., the home of Graham Fuller, the one-time Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA under President Reagan.

Over this past weekend, Fuller reluctantly confirmed the report published here last Thursday, "Boston bombers’ uncle married daughter of top CIA official."

He admitted that Ruslan Tsarni had once been married to his daughter.

But then, with the same breath, he derided what he called "rumors” of links between Tsarni and the Agency as “absurd.”

But documents surfaced over the weekend that cast a long shadow of doubt on Graham Fuller's assertion, which amounts to a beat cop waving his baton, and saying, "There's nothing to see here folks. Move along."

"Financiers of terrorism"

The documents include a letter written by the President of the Congress of Chechen Organizations International that, at least on the surface, could not have seemed more ordinary.

It was all about shoes.

In the letter, Congress of Chechen Organizations International President Mohammed Shoshani is interceding with the Board of Directors of Benevolence International, a “charity” that would later he designated “financiers of terrorism” by the Treasury Department, and shut down by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald after the 9/11 attack.

Shoshani was interceding with Benevolence on behalf of a new military commander in Chechnya named Sheikh Fathi, who had just arrived from spending 10 years fighting in Afghanistan.

Sheikh Fathi was a “military commander in the violent jihadist movement in Chechnya," noted U.S.. Atty Patrick Fitzgerald in a later indictment,(pdf.) ”as well as an influential “preacher of violent jihad.”

In the Benevolent International indictment, Fitzgerald said "Sheikh Fathi was a major conduit for providing material support to the Chechen rebels."

The uncle of the alleged Boston bombers was part of that conduit.

Just how connected are these people?

Fathi would gain a measure of infamy several years later when he introduced the top Al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan, Al Khattab, into the Chechen conflict. The move had disastrous results, turning what had been a civil war into a jihad.

Shoes for industry, shoes for the dead

Later Al-Khattab became the so-called 20th hijacker Zaccarias Moussaoui’s commander in Chechnya, according to French intelligence, and had close links with Osama bin Laden, according to former New York Times journalist Phil Shenon’s book “The Commission.”

But back to the letter. And the shoes.

On behalf of Sheikh Fathi, Mohammed Shoshani is thanking Benevolence International for the receipt of 2000 pairs of what Fitzgerald—in an indictment charging the leaders of Benevolence International, called “Anti-Mine Boots for the Chechen Mujahideen.”

The Saudi-based charity operated for years in Russia and Chechnya, pumping $50 million into mujahideen coffers, estimated Russian intelligence.

Sheikh Fathi’s eagerness to procure 5000 more pairs of American protective shoes, US Attorney Fitzgerald explained, had been to minimize the damage caused by small Russian-made camouflage mines, called Frog mines, which were wreaking havoc in the ranks of his Chechen fighters.

Were the Boston bombings "blow-back" from US Caucasus ops?

What does this have to do with the Boston Marathon bombing?

One clue: The President of “Uncle Ruslan’s" Congress of Chechen Organizations International, an expatriate Penn State engineering professor Mohammed Sishani, conducted almost all of his business through another organization he led, called the Chechen-Ingush Society of America.

All of his aboveboard business, that is. Ruslan’s outfit surfaced for the dirty bits, the covert side of the Chechen’s cause.

Was Ruslan Tsarni's organization acting as a free agent? Or was it a "cut-out" for the CIA, a convenient way to establish plausible deniability while executing decisions made by U.S. intelligence agencies, who were apparently interceding on the side of people we were calling "rebels" instead of "terrorists" for no reason other than it suited American objectives for Russian forces to get bogged down in a series of bitter civil wars?

Were such actions US policy at the time? Some say the answer is "yes." Wikileaks cables seem to agree.

America's fostering of a jihadist mercenary force in Afghanistan led directly to the blowback that became the 9/11 attack.

The creation of a "second Afghanistan" in the Caucasus may also have led to blowback: the unintended consequences of a covert operation. The result was in bombs going off in Boston.

Were two young jihadis from the North Caucasus region of Russia recruited to become Islamist terrorists and attack the United States at the Boston Marathon?

Questions remain. No, questions don’t “remain.” They “abound.”

The elder Fuller had retired from the agency almost a decade before the brief marriage," wrote the reporter he selected to give him a sympathetic hearing.

If he'd retired, and taken up horticulture, or origami, or golfing in Florida wearing lime-green sweater-slack combinations, rumors that his ex-son-in-law had connections with the CIA might indeed be absurd.

Was that how Mr. Fuller was spending his well-deserved retirement? Nope… He was working for RAND Corporation.

It was a busman's holiday. But there was also something else... Uncle Ruslan Tsarni's company, back in 1996, was actively aiding Islamic terrorists in Chechnya.

And there's no telling what he's up to now, because a story last week revealed that he was working for the US Government, again. And again, it was USAID. This time, since 2008.

Using the home address of a top CIA official under President Ronald Reagan, who had also, and perhaps not coincidentally, been the author of a famous memo that eventually led Oliver North to step off a plane in Iran with TOW missiles in one hand and a cake for the Ayatollah in the other, Ruslan Tsarni's Congress of Chechens put into practice the CIA's unacknowledged policy in the former Soviet Republics.

He's been stirring up xxxx on Russia’s southern border.

Question of the hour: who within the upper reaches of the US foreign policy establishment is leaking the documents that are further embarrassing the abominable Fuller? Or is all this shoe nonsense a lot of cobblers?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

And, yes, they've already started tree pruning on Elm Street, Boston:

Greetings Mr. Rigby:

I vaguely recall reading years ago about tree pruning in Dealey Plaza

in the aftermath of the assassination.

Can you point me to a good source where this issue is discussed?

Thank you in advance.

Edited May 1, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Len Colby]

The uncle of the accused Boston Marathon bombers incorporated, in 1995, a company called the "Congress of Chechen International Organizations." Even as the company was sending aid to Islamic terrorists in Chechnya,

No citation for the latter.

its listed address was in the home of former top CIA official Graham Fuller.

According to one of Hopsucker's cited sources Fuller said “They* also lived in our house in [Maryland] for a year or so.”

*Tsarni and his wife (Fuller's daughter)

But documents surfaced over the weekend that cast a long shadow of doubt on Graham Fuller's assertion,

But Hopsucker failed to post such documents

Sheikh Fathi was a “military commander in the violent jihadist movement in Chechnya," noted U.S.. Atty Patrick Fitzgerald in a later indictment,(pdf.) ”as well as an influential “preacher of violent jihad.”

LOL the linked document is a criminal complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida (Miami) by an FBI agent not an indictment filed by a prosecutor in Chicago or New York, at the time Fitzgerald was U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois 1400 miles (2200 kilometers) away in Chicago, years earlier he had been a senior prossecutor with in Southern District of New York almost as far away in NYC.

The uncle of the alleged Boston bombers was part of that conduit.

There is no mention of Tsarni/Tsarnaev of any other people/groups excepts ones based the Middle East, Central Asia or Caucuses.

On behalf of Sheikh Fathi, Mohammed Shoshani is thanking Benevolence International for the receipt of 2000 pairs of what Fitzgerald—in an indictment charging the leaders of Benevolence International, called “Anti-Mine Boots for the Chechen Mujahideen.”

No citation.

The Saudi-based charity operated for years in Russia and Chechnya, pumping $50 million into mujahideen coffers, estimated Russian intelligence.

No citation.

Sheikh Fathi’s eagerness to procure 5000 more pairs of American protective shoes, US Attorney Fitzgerald explained, had been to minimize the damage caused by small Russian-made camouflage mines, called Frog mines, which were wreaking havoc in the ranks of his Chechen fighters.

No citation.

Ruslan’s outfit surfaced for the dirty bits, the covert side of the Chechen’s cause.

Was Ruslan Tsarni's organization acting as a free agent? Or was it a "cut-out" for the CIA, a convenient way to establish plausible deniability while executing decisions made by U.S. intelligence agencies, who were apparently interceding on the side of people we were calling "rebels" instead of "terrorists" for no reason other than it suited American objectives for Russian forces to get bogged down in a series of bitter civil wars?

Were such actions US policy at the time? Some say the answer is "yes." Wikileaks cables seem to agree.

I didn't see anything in the linked document supporting Hopsucker's claim.

America's fostering of a jihadist mercenary force in Afghanistan led directly to the blowback that became the 9/11 attack.

Thought the USG supplied weapons and other help to the indigenous Mujuhadeen I've not seen any clear evidence they supported the Arab Afghans who were ideologues not mercenaries.

Questions remain. No, questions don’t “remain.” They “abound.”

Quite true but Hopsucker is not one to raise let alone answer such questions.

The elder Fuller had retired from the agency almost a decade before the brief marriage," wrote the reporter he selected to give him a sympathetic hearing.

So Hopsicker is insinuating that Tsarni somehow roped in his 'estranged' nephews who lived 440 miles (700 KM) away into a scheme on behalf of father of the wife he had divorced 10 years earlier after 3 – 4 years of marriage and that said ex-father-in-law was still with the CIA over 20 years after his supposed retirement?

If he'd retired, and taken up horticulture, or origami, or golfing in Florida wearing lime-green sweater-slack combinations, rumors that his ex-son-in-law had connections with the CIA might indeed be absurd.

Was that how Mr. Fuller was spending his well-deserved retirement? Nope… He was working for RAND Corporation.

Uugha Boogha, play the spooky music.

And there's no telling what he's up to now, because a story last week revealed that he was working for the US Government, again. And again, it was USAID. This time, since 2008.

As before according to the cited source he did not work directly for USAID but rather as “a legal consultant to a U.S. company contracted under USAID in a program of economic assistance for Kysrgyzstan.” Apparently “he grew up in Tokmak, Kyrgyzstan, and graduated from the Law School of Kyrgyz State University in 1994” then moved to the US and graduated from Duke Law School (one of the top 10 in the US) and spent some years doing business in formerly Soviet Central Asia he seems rather uniquely qualified as a legitimate consultant.

He's been stirring up xxxx on Russia’s southern border.

If Codsoaker had evidence of such he'd provide it.

Edited May 1, 2013 by Len Colby

[Dawn Meredith]

Boston bombers’ uncle married daughter of top CIA official

by Daniel Hopsicker, April 26, 2013

http://www.madcowpro...p-cia-official/

Paul I missed any proof that Ruslan Tsarni and Ruslan Tsarnaev are one and the same or any evidence that Samantha Ankara Fuller is the daughter of Samuel Fuller. In any case Tsarnev and Fuller were divorced in or before 2004 per Hopstroker's evidence.

Not to worry, Len, I've asked Tom Scully to compile an enormous data dump of genealogical newspaper links tracing the respective families all the way back to nitrogen in the atmosphere.

Don't know about you, but I can't wait.

Good to see someone keeping them honest over here. Thanks again Paul.

Anyone who is still not getting this...well Charles Drago has some specific words for conspiracy deniers.

The evidence is overwhelming. Unless people are refusing to read it and see the truth.

Guess some just want a signed confession from the real perps.

Does anyone else over here think it's a bit strange that "Colby" is responding to every post? Now he "knows" that it was not the AG who determined that Miranda was to be given. I'd be quite curious just how "he" acquires such inside information. And when "he" finds time to sleep.

I doubt a serious answer will be forthcoming.

Just wondering if anyone else is taking note.

Dawn.

[Len Colby]

Does anyone else over here think it's a bit strange that "Colby" is responding to every post? Now he "knows" that it was not the AG who determined that Miranda was to be given. I'd be quite curious just how "he" acquires such inside information. And when "he" finds time to sleep.

I doubt a serious answer will be forthcoming.

Just wondering if anyone else is taking note.

Dawn.

Dawn once again demonstrates that having nothing intelligent to say won't prevent her from posting. How do I know that it was the magistrate "who determined that Miranda was to be given"? Because is was she rather than anyone from the USG or law enforcement who informed him of those rights, hard to believe that someone who claims to be a lawyer couldn't figure that out. Does she disagree with with him being informed of his rights?

EDIT - Typo

Edited May 1, 2013 by Len Colby

[Paul Brancato]

Paul Rigby - have you read ex-sen. Bob Graham's latest book? I have not, but given the subject matter I thought maybe you had.

[Paul Rigby]

Paul Rigby - have you read ex-sen. Bob Graham's latest book? I have not, but given the subject matter I thought maybe you had.

No, Paul, I haven't but I've little doubt that Saudi money has been used to support Chechen terrorism:

US/Saudi covert operations in Chechnya: Ricin, diamonds, stingers

By John Stanton, 30 April 2013

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/30-04-2013/124461-usa_chechnya-0/

As the Cold War between the USSR and the USA drew down in the early 1990's, organizations/institutions used to fund proxy wars-and destabilization efforts--between the two Empires became exposed. With the Cold War ostensibly over, the corrupt and illegal actions of such groups could no longer be ignored, or covered up, as the larger purpose of them was to fund the fight against the Red Menace of Communism.

One of the most notable instances of the demise of a Cold War machine was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Founded in 1972 it would survive under various guises until roughly 2002. BCCI was designed to avoid regulatory scrutiny. Direct involvement with BCCI's illegal activities-including covering them up--would ultimately besmirch the names of members/advisors of every US presidential administration from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton: Clark Clifford, Richard Helms, George Bush I, James Baker, William Casey, Bert Lance, and Marc Rich among them. BCCI clients included the intelligence agencies form the US and Saudi Arabia, the Medellin Cartel and Saddam Hussein.

Bank accounts were opened at BCCI by US intelligence agencies in order to fund the Mujahideen not only in Afghanistan but in the Caucasian Region to include Chechnya and Dagestan. Once BCCI was shut down a new means of off-the-books funding was needed. It was then that the US and Saudi intelligence organizations figured out that diamonds from the African Continent would be a worthy convertible cash vehicle. Diamonds would make their way from Angola to Belgium. Once converted to cash, US and Saudi intelligence agencies could clandestinely purchase weapons, like Stinger Missiles, and bribe the appropriate personnel to get the nasty little weapons where they needed to be. In this case the anti-aircraft Stingers would land in the hands of Chechen rebels fighting against the Russian military. A transit and training point was (and remains) NATO and Israeli friendly Georgia.

According to the Russian research group Civil Research, "After signing the Khasavyurt Accord in Dagestan in 1996 ending the first Chechen War--and after the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria's de facto independence-"it became absolutely clear that Chechnya became a key element in the process of controlled destabilization of the Caucasian Region. Hence well-known intelligence managers of such destabilization processes moved to solve Chechen problems. The creators and instigators of shadow money and arms flows began to appear."

What's the Story?

BCCI "worked in the interests of American and Saudi elites and was a means of organization and financing of controlled crises in different regions from South America to Middle Asia...BCCI took an active part in arms smuggling, financing of terrorist groupings, and drug money laundering." According to Civil Research, BCCI accounts were surreptitiously used to fund the creation of nuclear weapons in Pakistan. The Board of directors of BCCI included two chiefs of the US Central Intelligence Agency--William Casey and Richard Helms; the head of the General secret service of Saudi Arabia from 1997-2001, Turki al-Feisal al-Saud; Camal Adkham -a former chief of the Saudi Arabia Secret service before; and Adnan Khashoggi-a Saudi multimillionaire, arms dealer, official representative of Saudi Bin Laden Group in the USA, and a key player in the Iran-Contra Affair under President Ronald Reagan.

"In 1997 Khashoggi introduced Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev (Chechen Mafia leader and opponent of Radical Islam and the USA) to former US Secretary of State James Baker who headed the election campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George Bush I. Baker would also be called in to mediate the 2000 Election debacle in Florida. Baker was Khashoggi's partner in BCCI and the Carlyle Group." Civil Research believes that it is likely that during meetings between the two, "the decision to create a structure to control the process of destabilization in the Caucasian Region--some kind of Regional BCCI or Caucasian Common Market--was made. In April of 1997 Nukhaev registered the Caucasian-American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Washington.

"We are inclined to think that Nukhaev's structures were managed by American and Saudi Special Services and were financed by Khashoggi through BCCI," said Civil Research. "The funds were used to purchase and deliver the modern means of Terrorist War to Chechnya: high accuracy weapons like anti-aircraft Stingers, satellite communication gear, intelligence tactics, sabotage devices, and well trained instructors mainly from the General Secret Service of Saudi Arabia...There are serious reasons to think that a batch of 70 Stingers came to Chechnya from Saudi Arabia."

Once BCCI's operations were exposed by the US Congress and an international assortment of regulators a new means of funding arms sales to anti-Russian, radicalized followers of Islam had to be found by NATO, US and Saudi intelligence agencies. Anti-Russian operations had also been conducted by then-active duty US Special Forces operating in Chechnya and Bosnia. These former American soldiers would find work, post-911, with companies like the former Blackwater (XE) and Triple Canopy.

Diamond Dogs

US, NATO and Saudi intelligence agencies turned to the diamond market to fund operations to destabilize Russia. According to Civil Research, in 1993 Aziz Ben Said Ben Ali al-Gamdi (a regular officer of General Secret Service of Saudi Arabia) went to Angola. "Later he would become known as Abu al Valid. During a business trip to Angola Abu al-Valid made contacts with the representatives both of UNITA and the legal government who were engaged in export of Angolan diamonds to Antwerp in Belgium. At the time Angola was filled with enterprising fragments of Soviet Special Services like Viktor Bute who not without success supported black and gray exports of Angolan diamonds to Belgium."

The Angolan conflict didn't interest the US, NATO or Saudi Special Services as much as did the acquisition and use of diamonds to create a considerable flow of cash for clandestine operations to further destabilize Russia by igniting Chechen radicalization.

By 1995 the Saudi Arabian Special Services had successfully created diamond flows from Luanda, Angola to Antwerp, Belgium to be used to fund radicalization and terror. Abu al-Valid showed up in Chechnya now as a Saudi Arabian resident and also as a representative of radical Islam grouping known as Brothers-Muslims. The first business contact of Abu al-Valid in Chechnya was with Nukhaev. A few months later Nukhaev was introduced to Khashoggi. Thus the construction of Caucasian Common Market" began. In 1997 Nukhaev, as an emissary of Caucasian Common Market, visited Belgium. By that time Antwerp was given the nickname Belgian Caliphate by the European press.

Meanwhile in Georgia

Lorenzo Vidino in How Chechnya Became a Breeding Ground for Terror (Middle East Quarterly Summer 2005) indicated that in 2002 a cadre of Islamic fundamentalists made camp in Pankisi Gorge in Georgia to plan and train. "According to Georgian officials, in early 2002, some sixty Arab computer, communications, and financial specialists, military trainers, chemists, and bomb-makers settled in the gorge. The group used sophisticated satellite and encrypted communications to support both operations in Chechnya and terrorists planning attacks against Western targets. The Pankisi Arabs later tried to buy explosives for what Georgian security officials believe was to have been a major attack on U.S. or other Western installations in Russia."

Vidino also claimed that in 2003 there was an effort by the Pankisi Arabs to use Ricin to kill. "A 2003 plot involving ricin, a virulent and deadly toxin, demonstrated the Islamist co-option of the Chechen nationalist conflict and its transformation into a global jihadist training ground. According to U.S. intelligence sources cited in an Italian indictment, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi (the Jordanian terrorist alleged to mastermind much of the Iraqi insurgency) dispatched Adnan Muhammad Sadiq (Abu Atiya), a former Al-Qaeda instructor at a Herat, Afghanistan training camp, to Pankisi [Georgia]. In the gorge, Abu Atiya, a Palestinian who had lost a leg during the Chechen War, trained terrorists in the use of toxic gases. He also was behind a 2002 scheme to stage biological and chemical attacks against Russian or American interests in Turkey."

[Paul Rigby]

I hold no brief for the concept of "blowback," which I regard as a CIA fiction serving CIA ends - but the stuff about Georgia is interesting:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the Penumbra of Terror

The Boston Marathon bombers had help

by Justin Raimondo, May 01, 2013

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2013/04/30/tamerlan-tsarnaev-and-the-penumbra-of-terror/

The semi-official story coming out of Washington, and the Western media, is that the Tsarnaev brothers were “self-radicalized” loners, “losers,” as their uncle Ruslan put it, unconnected to any larger organization or terrorist network. The poor babies were so alienated by life in America – where they had been given refugee status, welfare payments, and, in Dzhokhar’s case, citizenship – that they suddenly decided to carry out a terrorist act in which three were killed and hundreds wounded.

Move along, nothing to see here …

There’s just one problem with this story: it’s unraveling.

As we learn more about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s travels through Russia – he visited Dagestan, and went to Chechnya, in 2012 – and the Russian media examines his trail, a picture emerges of the penumbra of terror that hovered over and around him. Two names have cropped up: Makhmud Mansur Nidal, an 18-year-old of Chechen and Palestinian heritage, and recruiter for the Chechen insurgency, who was observed meeting with Tamerlan six times, and William Plotnick, a Canadian of Russian ethnicity – and, like Tamerlan, a boxer – who traveled to Dagestan in 2010. There Plotnick was interrogated by the authorities – who gave Tamerlan as one of his contacts: the two had communicated online via the web site of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth.

Plotnick came to Toronto, Canada, at the age of 15, the son of Christian ethnic Russians from Siberia: like Tamerlan, who was a Golden Gloves champion, Plotnick was a rising star in the world of amateur boxing, where he won medals and was praised by his coach as having Olympian potential. However, his conversion to Islam in 2009 put him on a different path – and he wound up dead less than three years later, in a firefight with security forces in the hinterlands of Dagestan.

Plotnick’s parents were puzzled and worried about their son’s sudden transformation into a religious fanatic, but their remonstrations were to no avail. One day they found a note on the kitchen table, informing them that he had gone to France “to celebrate Ramadan,” after emptying the family bank account of $3,500. Months passed with no word from him, until they found out he had – somehow – turned up in Moscow, where he was staying at the apartment of a mutual friend from Toronto.

From there he went on to Dagestan: by this time his frantic father had contacted Russia’s FSB, and they paid him a visit: they interrogated him about his online contacts, and he gave Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s name – which is how the Marathon bombing mastermind first showed up on their radar screen. The FSB released Plotnick and told him to go home: instead he went back to Moscow, briefly, but soon returned to Dagestan and joined up with the Chechen insurgents.

Plotnick starred in one of their propaganda videos – really, a recruiting video – which was circulated around the internet. He interviews a Turkish recruit, asking him “What do you do?” “Terrorism” is the reply. “I kill kaffirs.” Sitting down next to him, Plotnick addresses his audience directly:

“We have food to cook and eat, thanks to Allah. And also have brothers and try to do as much as we can for Allah. Kafirs, you’re not going to get what you expect. Allah is with us. He protects us. You don’t have a protector.

“We will kill you. We’re going to build plans against you. But no matter how many plans you make, nothing is going to succeed because whatever He described in His book is the truth. Allah is the truth. All of you others are waste, garbage.”

Plotnick was killed in an ambush by security forces on July 13, 2012. Tsarnaev left for the United States three days later.

“We’re going to build plans against you” – plans in which Tamerlan Tsarnaev played a key part?

The answer to that question is not yet clear, but there is some evidence pointing in that direction. To begin with, the two were in communication, and it’s possible they could have met in person when Tamerlan attended a boxing event and visited his aunt who lives in Toronto. Secondly, on his Youtube site, Tamerlan posted videos valorizing Plotnick’s group, led by one Gadhzhimurad Dolgatov, a Russian convert to Islam and a local commander of the Caucasian “Emirate” Chechen terrorist group. Dolgatov was killed in a shootout with security forces in December of last year, in Makhachkala, the regional capital of Dagestan where Tsarnaev stayed during his Russian sojourn and where his parents live today.

All of this raises some intriguing questions, but for the moment let us step back and look at the bigger picture. Clearly, there is an extensive recruiting effort by Chechen terrorist groups to draw in fighters from around the world: Plotnick, and apparently Tsarnaev, were drawn into this web. But what kind of help did they have? How did Plotnick, who only had $3,500 Canadian on him when he left for France, manage to live abroad for months and travel to Russia? What did he use for money? Tsarnaev’s financial condition was similar: how does an unemployed ex-boxer travel to Dagestan and otherwise support himself? There are news accounts saying the Tsarnaev brothers may have financed their terrorist plot by selling marijuana, but how does one travel to Dagestan and otherwise move about with no regular source of income?

For that, we turn to the Russian daily Izvestia and the Russian-1 television network, which report the contents of an intelligence dossier leaked by Col. Grigory Chanturia, of the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs, which claims that, in the summer of 2010, an organization calling itself the “Caucasian Fund,” or, alternately, the “Kavkazsky Fund,” co-sponsored with the Washington, D.C.-based Jamestown Foundation a series of “seminars” for North Caucasian youth – and that Tamerlan was one of the attendees.

The Fund was set up after the Georgian-Ossetian war, with $2.5 million expended to do “outreach” to “North Caucasian youth.” The program brought in Chechens and others from the European diaspora, and reportedly encouraged the participants in their militance: is this how Plotnick made it from France to Dagestan?

In response to these reports, the newly-elected President of Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili, made a remarkable statement that has been completely ignored in the Western media:

“It is possible that terrorists had been trained in Georgia, but the investigation is underway. Let’s wait for its results. We will get a lot of new information, maybe even some shocking findings. There are suspicions that the authorities worked with terrorists and militants. If this information is confirmed, this will be shocking.”

To say the least.

In response to the charge that the previous government had been in the business of harboring terrorists, former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, on a visit to the US, said “America will not take Ivanishvili’s words seriously.”

Perhaps not, but it seems passing strange that the elected President of one of our biggest allies in the Caucasus is investigating this possibility, while the American media – which has been obsessed with tracing the trail of the Boston Marathon terrorists – has so far ignored the Georgian connection.

That the Saakashvili government had every interest in destabilizing Russia’s hold over neighboring Dagestan is beyond dispute: the two countries fought a war in 2008, and were bitter enemies well before that. According to Radio Free Europe, a report by the new Public Defender in Georgia says that the Georgian Interior Ministry under Saakasvili “recruited and flew to Tbilisi from Europe up to 120 refugees from the North Caucasus, primarily Chechens, to undergo training prior to crossing the border into Russia and joining the insurgency. The men were housed in apartments in Tbilisi, trained at the Shavnabada and Vaziani military bases, and issued with licenses for their weapons.”

Izvestia says the Caucasus Fund was shuttered in late 2012 because it had attracted the FSB’s attention, and one former official of the group is quoted as saying the organization has been almost entirely defunct since January. However, they do have a web site, and, conveniently an American office in Boston. They are described here as a commercial venture, with capitalization of $92 million. $30 million of that comes from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a joint US government-private sector agency. Both the Fund and the Jamestown Foundation deny any involvement.

While the details still have to be fleshed out, one thing is clear: Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s journey to the finish line at the Boston Marathon wasn’t the hegira of a “lone nut” who acted without direction, compatriots, or outside help. Remember Plotnick’s last known message to the West: “We’re going to build plans against you.”

And so they did.

The Georgian connection points to a classic case of “blowback.” A covert operation conducted against the Russian government, originally, that got out of hand – and came back to bite the hand that fed it. The irony here is that such figures as Zbigniew Brzezinski, who sits on the board of the Jamestown Foundation, were responsible for the anti-Soviet “strategy” that allied the US with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan when the Russians invaded – a ruse that backfired spectacularly on September 11, 2001.

[Len Colby]

US/Saudi covert operations in Chechnya: Ricin, diamonds, stingers

By John Stanton, 30 April 2013

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/30-04-2013/124461-usa_chechnya-0/

As the Cold War between the USSR and the USA drew down in the early 1990's, organizations/institutions used to fund proxy wars-and destabilization efforts--between the two Empires became exposed. With the Cold War ostensibly over, the corrupt and illegal actions of such groups could no longer be ignored, or covered up, as the larger purpose of them was to fund the fight against the Red Menace of Communism.

[...]

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and the Penumbra of Terror

The Boston Marathon bombers had help

by Justin Raimondo, May 01, 2013

http://original.anti...mbra-of-terror/

The semi-official story coming out of Washington, and the Western media, is that the Tsarnaev brothers were “self-radicalized” loners, “losers,” as their uncle Ruslan put it, unconnected to any larger organization or terrorist network. The poor babies were so alienated by life in America – where they had been given refugee status, welfare payments, and, in Dzhokhar’s case, citizenship – that they suddenly decided to carry out a terrorist act in which three were killed and hundreds wounded.

Move along, nothing to see here …[...]

Sorry Paul those two articles suffer from the same deficiencies as the others you’ve posted; lack of adequate citations and they don’t really support your version of events. The only exception to the latter is the part in the 2^nd about Tamerlan’s supposed training in Georgia but that’s still based one or perhaps two reports from questionable sources: the former Soviet mouthpiece Izvestia and according to Raimondo “the Russian-1 television network”. But he failed to produce evidence the latter also reported the story, and even IF that were the case did they report this on their own or simply say that Izvestia had done so? Russian-1 it should be noted is state owned. I have not seen any other reports that Tamerlan went anywhere other than Moscow and Dagestan during that trip, the Georgian gov’t denied the story and said Tamerlan never visited their country. If Izvestia, Russian-1 or any other source had produced the supposed documents Raimondo and others would have reported them.

And you still have to address the question how did the MIC/FoD/ZoG/MIBH/PTB etc benefit from this incident?

[Paul Rigby]

I hold no brief for the concept of "blowback," which I regard as a CIA fiction serving CIA ends....

Opens with an excellent consideration of the concept of "blowback" - and how useful it is to the forces of tyranny:

"Blowback" vs reality Syria-Russia-Boston Israel

[Paul Rigby]

The only exception to the latter is the part in the 2^nd about Tamerlan’s supposed training in Georgia but that’s still based one or perhaps two reports from questionable sources: the former Soviet mouthpiece Izvestia and according to Raimondo “the Russian-1 television network”. But he failed to produce evidence the latter also reported the story, and even IF that were the case did they report this on their own or simply say that Izvestia had done so? Russian-1 it should be noted is state owned. I have not seen any other reports that Tamerlan went anywhere other than Moscow and Dagestan during that trip, the Georgian gov’t denied the story and said Tamerlan never visited their country. If Izvestia, Russian-1 or any other source had produced the supposed documents Raimondo and others would have reported them.

And the US media is to be believed because it's owned by...?

[Len Colby]

The only exception to the latter is the part in the 2^nd about Tamerlan’s supposed training in Georgia but that’s still based one or perhaps two reports from questionable sources: the former Soviet mouthpiece Izvestia and according to Raimondo “the Russian-1 television network”. But he failed to produce evidence the latter also reported the story, and even IF that were the case did they report this on their own or simply say that Izvestia had done so? Russian-1 it should be noted is state owned. I have not seen any other reports that Tamerlan went anywhere other than Moscow and Dagestan during that trip, the Georgian gov’t denied the story and said Tamerlan never visited their country. If Izvestia, Russian-1 or any other source had produced the supposed documents Raimondo and others would have reported them.

And the US media is to be believed because it's owned by...?

Pick cherries much Paul?

And you still have to address the question how did the MIC/FoD/ZoG/MIBH/PTB etc benefit from this incident?