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| The New Azerbaijan Hub: How Islamist operations are targeting Russia, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh |
by Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor
Defense and Foreign Affairs' Strategic Policy |
| October, 1999 |
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An ongoing study by Defense & Foreign Affairs has cited a significant number of highly-placed sources in Russia and the Caucasus who advise that radical Islamist forces are expanding their infrastructure in Azerbaijan in preparation for a sustained escalation, both in the Caucasus and at the heart of Russia. Planned terrorist "spectaculars" include the use of suicide bombers.
Significantly, these developments are based on long-standing relationships and understandings between Azeri officials and the Islamist leaders involved in Chechnya, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The escalation began in 1997 when the Islamists basically agreed with the Azerbaijan Government of Gaydar Aliyev that they would -- in exchange for allowing a free flow of people, weapons and ordnance through Azerbaijan -- not interfere with or overthrow the Aliyev Government. As well, they committed to providing outside mujahedin to undertake operations against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh which could be credibly denied by the Aliyev Government.
This Azerbaijan-based infrastructure is aimed at both pushing arriving mujahedin to the forward training and operational bases in Chechnya, as well as launching operations against Russia and Armenia (including Nagorno-Kara- bakh) in the event of Russian bombing and raids on the Islamist bases in Chechnya. At present, the most important function of the infrastructure in Azerbaijan is the absorption, handling and initial acclimatization and indoctrination of foreign volunteers, mainly Arabs and Afghans/Pakistanis, as well as growing numbers of Central Asians, before being sent forward to terrorism and military training bases in central Chechnya, mainly the Saudi-born Islamist leader Khattab's main rear-area base near Urus-Martan, Chechnya. Among the mujahedin presently handled in Azerbaijan are numerous would-be shahids (suicide terrorists) who had been trained in Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. The Islamist infrastructure in Azerbaijan is built on the experience of bin Laden, Khattab and their companions in not only absorbing volunteers for Afghan jihad during the 1980s, but of transforming them into a cohesive elite corps (which is still cohesive and most active more than a decade after the Afghan jihad).
The current Islamist build-up constitutes a major expansion of the so-called covert pipeline which has been running since the Winter of 1997-98. The primary objective of the original pipeline was to smuggle weapons, money and people arriving from Pakistan/Afghanistan into Chechnya. The two primary methods of transportation:
* By truck from the Baku region through the mountains and into Dagestan and Chechnya; or
* By light aircraft from several sites in Azerbaijan into the Vedeno gorge or to Nozhay-Yurtovskiy Rayon in Chechnya.
The weapons delivered have been both shipments from Pakistan/Afghanistan, as well as large consignments of weapons purchased locally either from the ex-Soviet stockpiles of the Azerbaijani armed forces or specially acquired from Ukrainian and other suppliers (these weapons were purchased the Azerbaijani official channels with Baku providing end-user certificates and the buyers paying large commissions to all involved).
The current phase started in early September 1999 following a decision in Baku to upgrade the support for the Chechen-Dagestani Islamist forces. The new policy was elucidated publicly on August 20, 1999, by Vafa Guluzade, an Adviser to Gaydar Aliyev and the Azeri Government on State Policy issues. "Chechen and Dagestani fighting should be regarded as a national liberation struggle, not as terrorism as the Russian authorities are trying to present it," Vafa Guluzade declared. He said that "today Russia is actually continuing in the Caucasus the policy of serf Russia which in 19th Century subjugated with fire and the sword the freedom-loving Caucasian nations. . . . Carrying out a military campaign in the Caucasus today, the biggest campaign after the first Caucasian war, Russia is declaring itself a successor of Tsarist Russia." Having gained their independence after hundreds of years of Russian subjugation, Guluzade believes, all Muslim states of the Caucasus should unite their efforts to compel Russia to "change its policy regarding the Caucasus and other national regions before it is too late".
The modalities for the running of the new facilities in Azerbaijan were defined during most of September. The new activities in support of Chechnya and Dagestan were defined in late September/early October during a supposedly- secret visit to Georgia and particularly Azerbaijan by Selim Beshayev, the Vice Speaker of the Chechen Parliament. Beshayev's talks with Azeri officials were aimed at ensuring the smooth flow of mujahedin and the specialized equipment they need without undue interference.
In Baku, Beshayev has spent a lot of time convincing the Azeri authorities to expand their direct involvement in the Islamist "cause" in the aftermath of the Russian exposure of the Turkey-Georgia pipeline. Beshayev used both carrots and sticks. He promised lavish "unofficial" foreign aid to Azerbaijan: large quantities of cash from diverse sources in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states which will most likely go to private pockets. Beshayev, also reiterated the Islamists' promise to assist Baku in "resolving the Karabakh problem" as expeditiously as possible. He was also willing to "guarantee" the security of the Baku-Novorossiysk oil pipeline. The concurrent expansion of Islamists activities in Azerbaijan proves the success of Beshayev's visit to Baku.
The key Islamist facilities are concealed as charity and educational organizations affiliated with the web used by bin Laden's networks. Moreover, the headquarters of these organizations are stuffed with Arab "teachers" and "managers" from the ranks of such organizations as the International Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Salvation Front, several branches of Islamic Jihad, and the National Islamic Front of Sudan. The key organizations are:
* World Assembly of Islamic Youth (sometimes translated as World Islamic Youth Assembly). Its headquarters is located in Baku's residential district of Dzhandzhlik/Janjilk. The key principals are Muhammad Salim Abd-al-Hamid (Saudi papers), Muhammad Ali Khoroko (Somali papers), Arif Abdallah Abd-al-Hamid and Hayruzi Qa'id Abd-al-Rahman (both Yemenite papers). Another Saudi, Salah Salman, is the contact man with Islamist charity and financial organizations in Saudi Arabia:
* The International Organization of Islamic Salvation. Its headquarters is on Narimanov Street, in the settlement (essentially remote suburb) of Azizbekovo near Baku. The three main functionaries are Muhammad Shama, Muhammad Salih al-Jarni and Arif Abdallah Abd-al-Hamid (same as above), all with Yemenite papers;
* Al-Ibrahim Foundation. Very little is known about this Baku-based charity except that its Arab principals have huge amounts of cash in hard currency. They are involved in acquisition of real estate among other "educational" projects.
In the Fall of 1999, these charities began setting up several camps near Baku, where their students should be able "to study the Koran in a quiet setting". The primary function of the camps in the overall vicinity of Baku is the training of professional agitators. The students are a mixture of Arabs, Caucasians and Central Asians. Their primary mission is intended to be to "brainwash" the Muslim population of Dagestan (as well as of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) into supporting Islamist causes, subversion and terrorism. The Islamists have just established in these camps facilities for the production of printed, audio and video incitement and agitation material advocating anti-Russian and anti-Western jihad. Significantly, these "camps" are also engaged in agitation against hated Muslim governments, particularly the House of al-Saud. On one wall there is the slogan in Arabic: "The fate of the Shah of Iran, who was driven out of his own country by Islamic organizations, awaits the [Saudi] royal family."
THE SECOND PHASE in the expansion of the Islamist facilities has begun in the past few days. A group of Arabs -- all with documents from Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and Afghanistan -- left the Baku area to newly established "religious field camps" in the remote mountains of north-eastern Azerbaijan, on the road to Chechnya and Dagestan. All three Islamist "charities" mentioned above established such camps virtually simultaneously. These are paramilitary camps where the students undergo basic military training as well as equipping before they move on toward Chechnya and Dagestan. Some of the leaders and commanders of these camps have been identified as "proxies of terrorist Osama bin Laden".
Meanwhile, in anticipation for escalation and expansion, senior officials of the International Muslim Brotherhood, the National Islamic Front, and several branches of Islamic Jihad arrived in Azerbaijan in the latter days of September 1999. By the first week of October, they were mainly arranging contacts with local Islamists in order to establish new routes for moving money, weapons and mujahedin into Chechnya. One of their priorities is the shipment of Stingers from Pakistan. In their conversations with Azerbaijani Islamists and "forth-coming" officials, these emissaries acknowledged that their primary objective is the consolidation in Azerbaijan of a "springboard for inserting their main forces [into Chechnya and Dagestan]". They also set up a flow of cash into the accounts of the Islamist charities and camps. Since late September 1999, there have been repeated transfers of funds from Saudi Arabia via Beirut, totaling tens of millions of dollars.
Much of this money is then transferred to Chechnya by couriers. For example, one of the camps received an electronic transfer of $ 2-million from Al-Barakah Bank Lebanon (which is owned by the Saudi Sheikh Salih Abdallah Kamil). An Arab called Bin-Abdallah (UAE papers) received the money in cash and immediately carried it across the border into Chechnya. On October 5, 1999, Azerbaijani border guards arrested two Arabs (with Iraqi papers) near the village of Pashbir. They had US$ 300,000 in cash on them. They claimed they were volunteers working for a charity in Chechnya. All available evidence suggests that these known cases are but a small fraction of the present shipment of funds from Arab countries to Chechnya as well as the "Koranic camps" in Azerbaijan.
Another indicator of impending Islamist activities in and via Azerbaijan are the reconnaissance trips of Arab experts near the borders with Chechnya and Dagestan. For example, in the first week of October, a team from the Islamic Jihad traveled twice from Baku to the Azerbaijani-Dagestani border and carefully studied mountain passes and roads near the border. On October 5, 1999, a Turkish citizen called Yegid Rejeb was arrested on the Azerbaijani-Dagestani border en route to Khasavyurt with a Russian passport in the name of Magomed Sattarov. Rejeb is a graduate of one of the Baku area camps.
Meanwhile, the build-up of expert terrorist cadres has begun through other venues as well. On September 20, 1999, Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev announced the forthcoming establishment of a battalion of 400-500 shahids: would-be martyrs; that is, suicide terrorists. "These people will be ready and capable of carrying out the most difficult of tasks," he declared in Grozny. "Time and circumstances will tell" what specific tasks he had in mind for them.
Again, this was not an empty threat. Between October 3-5, 1999, a group of about 50 veteran Arab mujahedin -- carrying papers from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Palestinian Authority -- arrived at Khattab's main camp at Urus-Martan in central Chechnya. They traveled into Georgia legally on transit visas issued by the Georgian Consulate in Turkey. They are the first of about 100 Arab mujahedin known to have received Georgian visas together. Once this type of travel was exposed, the Georgian authorities in Turkey began dragging their feet in providing visas to walk-in Arabs. Therefore, the Islamists have expanded their search for new alternate routes into Chechnya and Dagestan via Azerbaijan.
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