SPECIAL REPORT - Why was Russia's intelligence coup on Al-Qaeda ignored?
Claims that Western intelligence services failed to gather vital information about Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda network and links between the Taliban regime and Pakistan have been exposed as fallacy by the leaking of an astonishingly detailed report. Compiled by Russian intelligence, the report was passed by Moscow's Permanent Mission at the UN to the Security Council and the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in March. This special JID investigation explores the implications of this extensive report, which our Russian intelligence sources have confirmed as genuine.
In the immediate aftermath of the multiple terrorist strikes in the US on 11 September there was widespread disbelief that Western intelligence agencies appeared to have so little specific information concerning the recent activities of Saudi-born terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. Although he has featured on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' list of suspects for several years, an earlier US military response to the suicide bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 failed to kill the Al-Qaeda chief or to disable his extensive network of activists. The key reason cited for this negative result was the difficulty of locating Bin Laden and his mobile bases within Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
However, a leaked Russian document reveals that on 9 March 2001 Moscow presented the UN Security Council Committee on Afghanistan with a very comprehensive and detailed report on Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The report not only provided extremely explicit intelligence concerning 55 alleged Al-Qaeda bases and offices located throughout the areas of the country controlled by the regime in Kabul, but also provided copious information on 31 senior Pakistani officers whom it is alleged were at that time actively involved with Bin Laden and the Taliban.
A further section of the seven page report names seven top officials of the Taliban regime - including its Chief of the General Staff - who are alleged to be controlling the country's production and trading of narcotics. An accusation that the regime is actively involved in the production and distribution of heroin was just one of the specific charges laid against the Taliban by British Prime Minister Tony Blair during his speech to the House of Commons on 4 October.
Other information concerns six named Pakistani officers who are alleged to hold senior positions within the Taliban military and security apparatus - including its head of intelligence - as well as 16 examples of what the report claims are regular units of the Pakistani armed forces based in Afghanistan - an allegation that the government of General Pervez Musharraf has vigorously denied. The Russian list includes information on Pakistani parachute regiments, commando units and even an "AWACS airborne warning and control system reconnaissance aircraft", which the report indicates was operating from Mazar-e-Sharif airport and carrying out reconnaissance missions on the borders with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Of particular interest are the sections of the report which deal with the activities of named officials of Pakistan's Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI), who are said to have been based in Afghanistan earlier this year. Some of those named, including eight ISI generals and various other military officers of senior rank, are alleged to have been based at Pakistan's embassy in Kabul (at that time Pakistan was one of only three states that actually recognised the Taliban regime as the legitimate government of Afghanistan), while others are reported to have been attached to military units or were reportedly acting as 'advisers' to the Taliban.
There can be little doubt that most - if not all - of the report's content is based on the factual state of affairs in Afghanistan at the time it was compiled immediately prior to its delivery to the UN. Having had a very close intelligence interest in neighbouring Afghanistan in the run-up to its 1979 invasion - and in the 10-year occupation that followed - Moscow is very well placed to provide high-grade intelligence on the region. The then KGB recruited local officers and had a well-trained cadre of Pushto-speaking agents and analysts who specialised in the complex affairs of the region. These personnel monitored the various factions and tribal alliances within the Mujahideen, who were waging a remarkably successful guerrilla war against the Soviet armed forces. One of the young anti-Soviet warriors was, of course, Osama bin Laden.
Unlike the West, which appeared to have largely lost interest in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union, Moscow has had its own very special reasons for maintaining a well-informed intelligence network there. The ongoing conflict with the Chechen separatists, as well as bomb attacks against Russian cities, including the capital, have led the Russian government to invest in gathering detailed data on the Taliban and those militants it has been sheltering.
There can be no doubt that the decision to provide this detailed intelligence to the UN Security Council (the permanent members of which are the USA, the UK, Russia, China and France) was approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin, himself a former senior KGB official. However, the most important question remains why no military action was launched against Al-Qaeda once such information had been made available by the Russian mission at the UN.
Our diplomatic sources indicate that, although the Russian material was known to US officials, a decision to either take military action against Al-Qaeda bases or put diplomatic pressure on Pakistan was shelved for the following reasons:
· The administration of US President George W Bush was hesitant to launch a military offensive against Bin Laden because of concern that it would have a very negative impact on the US role in brokering a workable peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It was for the same reason that the previous US president, Bill Clinton, failed to take advantage of an offer made last year by President Putin to use Russian military bases in Tajikistan to launch a US military attack against Bin Laden.
· There was concern that launching such a pre-emptive attack might lead to a rise in support for Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda throughout the Islamic world and that there was the risk that the 1998 debacle might be repeated, with Bin Laden escaping death or capture once more.
· There was a view that US allies in the region, notably Saudi Arabia, would object to the use of military action against a regime that they recognised diplomatically.
· There was the fear that such an attack might lead to a region-wide conflict that could escalate into a full-scale Middle East war and lead to the targeting of US facilities and personnel abroad.
Detailed as the Russian report is, the intelligence it contains is now likely to be very dated. Bin Laden and his associates will no doubt be aware of its existence and probably the specific information it contains (which JID has taken the decision not to divulge here in the interests of security). As a blueprint for targeting Al-Qaeda at present it is probably of very limited value. However, the mounting evidence that Pakistan's security service and military has been so closely involved with the regime in Kabul must raise very significant doubts about both the veracity of any intelligence passed over to the US-led coalition as well as the loyalty of these institutions to General Musharraf should he continue to support the anti-Taliban coalition.
