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A Russian arms merchant funnels money, guns, and dope through the United Arab Emirates

by Open-Publishing - Friday 24 February 2006
6 comments

Wars and conflicts Trade-Exchange Rates USA

Ports: All ’Bout a Dealer Named Bout
A Russian arms merchant funnels money, guns, and dope through the United Arab Emirates

by James Ridgeway
February 23rd, 2006 11:09 AM WASHINGTON, D.C.-To hear the administration and its supporters talk, you’d think the workers in New York ports are carefully vetted by the Waterfront Commission, the ports themselves protected by the ever watchful Coast Guard, and routinely surveilled by U.S. Customs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/p... In truth,one administration after another has slashed the operational capability of the Coast Guard. Reagan even contemplated its privatization by a major defense firm. As for the Customs Service, it inspects as little as 5 percent of the cargo going through the New York ports.

This is a dream setup for any arms or dope dealer, and that’s exactly what the United Arab Emirates is all about.The ties between its top officials and royal family with the Taliban and Al Qaeda
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/06...go back at least a decade.

The UAE is not only the center of financial dealings in the Persian Gulf, it is switching central for dope and arms dealing. The dope comes out of Afghanistan into the UAE where tax monies are collected and used to buy arms, which were sent back in for the Taliban. Some of this money is thought to have helped finance the 9-11 attacks. A money trail is set forth in the government’s filings in the Moussaoui
http://www.msnbc.com/modules/wtc/mo...case.

Long at the center of this operation is the mysterious Russian arms dealer, Victor Bout. The U.N. has accused Bout of providing arms to brutal regimes in Sierra Leone,Angola and to Charles Taylor in Liberia. The Center for Public Integrity, a Washington, D.C. research organization that operates a network of foreign correspondents, published a report on Bout in January 2002, citing Belgian intelligence documents from before the 9-11 attacks it had obtained. These documents reportedly show Bout earned $50 million in profits from selling weapons to the Taliban after they came to power in the late 1990s. The Center states, "Another European intelligence source independently verified the sales, and intelligence documents from an African country in which Bout operates-obtained by the Center-claim that Bout ran guns for the Taliban ’on behalf of the Pakistan government.’ " Peter Hain, the British Foreign Office Minister for Europe who has led the international effort to expose criminal networks behind the conflict diamonds and small arms trade in Africa, told the Center’s reporters, it was clear
http://gnn.tv/articles/613/The_Busi...that Bout’s supply of weapons to the Taliban "and to its ally, Osama bin Laden" posed a real danger.

Der Spiegel, the German magazine, said in early January 2002 that Vadim Rabinovich, an Israeli citizen of Ukrainian origin, along with the former director of the Ukrainian secret service and his son sold a consignment of 150 to 200 T-55 and T-62 tanks to the Taliban. Spiegel said the deal was conducted through the Pakistani secret service and uncovered by the Russian foreign intelligence service, SVR, in Kabul, the Afghan capital. A Western intelligence source told the Public Integrity Center that Rabinovich’s weapons had been airlifted by one of Bout’s airfreight companies from his base in the UAE.

Rabinovich denied all this, and Bout said "For the record, I am not, and never have been, associated with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or any of their officials, officers, or related organizations," Bout said, according to a copy of the statement released in the United States by one of his associates. "I am not, nor are any of my organizations, associated with arms traffickers and/or trafficking or the sale of arms of kind [sic] anywhere in the world. I am not, nor is any member of my family, associated with any military or intelligence organizations of any country."

No one is suggesting Bout has any great love for the radical Muslim fundamentalists of Taliban ilk. He sold guns to the Russians fighting the CIA-backed Afghan mujahideen in their war with the Soviet Union and to the warlords opposing the Taliban. His planes are registered to various companies all operating out of the United Arab Emirates.

In fact, the United Arab Emirates have been viewed as hub for trade going and coming to Afghanistan, with drugs coming from Afghanistan on their way to the West, and weapons from Bout, going back. While transportation was via Bout’s different air cargo interests, it also involved the Afghan state airlines, called Ariana Airlines. The airline was controlled by Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda agents masquerading as Ariana employees flew out of Afghanistan, through Sharjah, one of the emirates, and on to points west.

During the late 1990s Bout’s center of operations was Ostend, Belgium, but when he came under pressure there, he left Belgium. The UAE office grew in importance.

Bout used various air cargo outfits. One of them was called Flying Dolphin, which in the early 2000s was owned by Sheikh Adbullah bin Zayed bin Saqr al Nayhan, a former UAE ambassador to the United States and member of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi. He was described by the United Nations as a "close business associate of Bout." According to the December 20, 2000, U.N. report, Zayed’s company is registered in Liberia, but its operations office is in Dubai.

Forum posts

  • Dubai Harbored Hijackers? Big Deal, Bush Says By Margaret Carlson 23 Feb 2006 "There is no professional who knows what [Michael] Chertoff is doing in charge of homeland security. The department Bush built from scratch is a disgrace, largely because to Bush all civil servants are bureaucrats and the government a pinata to be hit until all the goodies are disgorged. Oh, Why Not? Plunder Medicare for the drug industry? Done. Give away oil royalties to the energy industry? Done. Let the oil industry write the energy bill in secret? Done. Enrich insurance companies with Health Savings Accounts? Check. Appoint a lawyer to oversee disaster relief and homeland security when there are experts in the field who’ve devoted their professional lives to the subject? Oh, why not?"

    http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/new...

    • does chertoff remind anyone else of "Skeletar" ?

    • More like NIKOLAI LENIN.

    • And well he should look like Lenin....My guess is that he is of eastern Euro "ashkenazi" Jew.....from the Kahzarian area....long pointed face,not flat like Celt’s faces for instance ,pointed ears....Quite Reptilian in appearance......HMMMMMMMMM??????also see Richard Pearle,if you want to be "scared"...

  • More on Bout from http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/dec11-1705.htm:

    December 11, 2005 — SPECIAL REPORT. Additional ties between southern Christian fundamentalists, Texas oil interests, and Russian-Israeli mobsters and weapons smugglers uncovered. According to informed Washington insiders, there is increasing evidence of financial links between key "Christian Right" GOP notables and an international ring of Russian-Ukrainian-Israeli mobsters tied to notorious Russian weapons smuggler Viktor Vasilevich (aka Anatoliyevich) Bout.

    Bout, whose U.S. assets were frozen by the Treasury Department, continues to provide various contractor services in Iraq and is considered by Condoleezza Rice to be out-of-bounds for U.S. law enforcement authorities. When she was National Security Adviser, Rice pre-empted an attempt by Sharjah, United Arab Emirates authorities to arrest Bout. To U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Rice was very clear when it comes to Bout: "Look, but don’t touch" was her direct order to the CIA and FBI. It appears that Bout has gone from arms smuggler for Al Qaeda and the Taliban to arms runner for the Bush administration. Bout’s British Gulf International Airline, registered in Sao Tome and Principe and Kyrgyzstan and based in Sharjah, is a regular visitor to Baghdad International and airports in the north of Iraq. Bout also made a financial windfall from contracts let to his airline companies by the former Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority led by L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer. Bout also benefited from contracts let to his Dubai-based Falcon Express Cargo by Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton.

    Bout’s British Gulf International contracted to U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. Bout once provided arms to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

    Federal prosecutors are already examining links between indicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Italian Mafia hit men who have been charged with murdering Florida businessman Gus Boulis, former Christian Coalition director and Georgia Republican Lt. Governor candidate Ralph Reed, and indicted Texas GOP Representative Tom DeLay. Abramoff associate Adam Kidan has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of Abramoff, especially deals involving the shake down of various Indian tribes in shady casino deals.

    There is also now interest in the activities of Richard T. Hines, the head of the powerful Republican lobbying firm RTH Consulting, Inc. Hines, a South Carolina native and a protege of the late GOP dirty trickmeister Lee Atwater, was one of the architects of the dirty tricks campaign by Bush against John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. A confederate of Abramoff in the 1980s Reagan administration’s covert support network for the Nicaraguan contras, Angolan UNITA guerrillas, and Afghan mujaheddin, Hines is active in various Confederacy resurgence organizations, many of which have clear racist agendas. However, that has not prevented Hines from becoming the lobbyist for Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh, a military officer who overthrew Gambia’s democratically-elected President Sir Dawda K. Jawara in a 1994 military coup supported by the United States Navy.

    Hines inherited the lobbying contract for Gambia from the eclectic Washington lobbyist Edward von Kloberg III, an individual who represented Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Liberia’s Samuel K. Doe, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, Congolese leader Laurent Kabila, the exiled King Kigeli V of Rwanda, and Saddam Hussein. Last May, von Kloberg took a swan dive off of a castle in Rome, allegedly committing suicide after a spat with a gay partner.

    The connections between Hines and Gambia are important since the small narrow West African country is also a major base of operations for notorious Russian international arms smuggler Viktor Bout. The Gambia is the headquarters for one of many of Bout’s front companies — companies that are used to smuggle everything from weapons to diamonds and mercenaries to international relief supplies. In fact, Bout was the character on whom fictional arms smuggler Yuri Orlov, played by Nicolas Cage in the movie Lord of War, was largely based.

    Bout’s connections with the Christian Right do not end with Gambia. Bout was Liberian dictator Charles Taylor’s primary arms and diamond smuggler. Bout and his associates were given Liberian diplomatic passports and, with Taylor’s blessing and protection, they registered a number of their front companies in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. Taylor, who is now in exile in Nigeria, was a business partner with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. Robertson’s organization mentored both Ralph Reed and Richard Hines. According to British and Israeli intelligence sources, Taylor also enabled Al Qaeda to launder blood diamonds for cash through Liberia. Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone were Russian and Ukrainian mobsters engaged in business with Israeli gangsters and mercenaries who operated under the full protection of the Israeli Likud government.

    Before Likud began purging Mossad of experienced intelligence officers with ties to the Israeli Labor Party, the Israeli-Al Qaeda diamond financial connection in West Africa was being pointed out by those officers as suicidal for Israeli interests. However, Taylor and Bout had powerful interests in the United States: a combination of the Christian Right and pro-Likud organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), both of which ignored and continue to ignore Israeli organized crime connections to Al Qaeda and terrorism.

    Robertson and Taylor were business partners in a Cayman Islands front company called Freedom Gold, Ltd. In fact, Freedom Gold bas headquartered at Robertson’s CBN offices in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Robertson’s African interests also crossed paths with Bout’s in another country — the former Zaire. Robertson’s African Development Company used the cover of Robertson’s tax-exempt "Operation Blessing" to ferry conflict diamonds out of civil war-ravaged Zaire (now Congo).

    A rare photo of Viktor Bout, aka Butt, Bont, Butte, Boutov, and Vitali Sergitov, born January 13, 1967 and January 13, 1970. Passports: various Liberian diplomatic, two Russian, one Ukrainian.

    A UN Security Council report dated November 30, 2005, lists Bout’s Gambia New Millennium Air Company as having its address at the residence of Hines’ client Jammeh: State House, Banjul, Gambia. The UN report states, "The Director of this firm is Baba Jobe, who is already listed on the Liberia Sanctions Committee’s assets freeze list. According to a commercial aviation database, the firm acted as a cover for Victor Bout’s operations. Its one aircraft, a Russian-made passenger jet, was acquired from Centrafrican Airlines."

    It is noteworthy that Hines’s client, President Jammeh, just took possession of the Russian-made VIP presidential passenger jet, an Ilyushin IL-62 (C5-GNM) [Gambia] (formerly CCCP-86511 [USSR], RA-86511 [Russia], 3D-RTI [Swaziland], TL-ACL [Central African Republic]). And also of interest is the owner of the presidential aircraft: it is none other than Gambia New Millennium Air, the Bout-owned company listed on the UN Security Council freeze list and which is headquartered at Jammeh’s State House in Banjul, the Gambian capital. In fact, the plane had been previously registered to Bout front companies in Swaziland and the Central African Republic.

    The Gambia: Joins Gabon and Swaziland as another African playground for the GOP Mafia

    Bout, who flew arms and passengers from Dubai and other locations to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan prior to 9-11, is now providing air services in post-Taliban Afghanistan as well as U.S.-occupied Iraq. Bout’s transactions with the Taliban were handled by Vial, Inc., a firm based in Delaware. One of Bout’s closest associates is the Russian-Israeli Odessa-born crime boss Leonid Minin, an Israeli national who, according to the UN Security Council, travels on forged German passports as well as legal Israeli, Russian, Greek, and Bolivian passports under at least ten aliases.

    It is also noteworthy that many of Bout’s operations are based in Eastern European countries that have been mentioned in association with the rendition and transporting of CIA prisoners. Bout’s numerous Russian-built cargo and passenger planes have been seen at the same airports used by CIA flights. For example, Bright Aviation, a suspected Bout front, is based at Sofia Airport in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is believed to be one of the countries used by the CIA to house secret prisoners. Another Bout front, Moldtransavia SRL, is based in Chisinau, Moldova, another suspected stopover point for CIA flights.

    One Chisinau, Moldova-based Bout front company, Aerocom, which also does business as Air Mero, is contracted to fly for Kellogg, Brown & Root in Iraq and elsewhere. Aerocom has also been cited in UN and DEA reports for being involved in drug smuggling in Belize. Some law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe believe that the covert flights being operated by CIA contractors and Bout’s companies in support of secret prisoner movement are also involved in smuggling drugs. After being subjected to news reports, Aerocom quickly changed its name last year.

    More ties that bind Bush cartel to Russian-Ukrainian-Israeli Mafia: Bush with Yahya Jammeh, dictator of the Gambia, the client of both GOP lobbyist and neo-Confederate Richard Hines and international arms smuggler Viktor Bout.

    Bright’s Antonov AN-12 planes were also sighted in Western European airports frequented by CIA aircraft suspected of transporting prisoners. One of the most interesting connections was the presence of Bright Aviation’s AN-12V (LZ-BRP) on October 5, 2004 at Helsinki’s Vantaa Airport. Just two days before, U.S. private military contractor Blackwater’s CASA C212-CC Aviocar (N960BW) also landed at Vantaa.

    Bright’s LZ-BRP was also spotted at Budapest Ferihegy on October 26, April 30, and March 30, 2005; Marseilles on October 27, 2005; Toulouse in April 2005; Vigo, Spain on October 16, 2005; Amsterdam Schipol on September 17, 2005; Zurich on June 3, 2005; Plovdiv, Bulgaria on June 11, 2005; Lyons on January 24, 2005; Madrid on January 27, 2005 and July 16, 2004; Recife, Brazil on November 20, 2004, Zagreb, Croatia on September 9, 2004; Tenerife (Canary Islands) on June 13, 2004; Ostend, Belgium on June 2, 2004; and Geneva on May 11 and 12, 2004 (first visit for this aircraft to Geneva). Another Bright AN-12 (LZ-BRC) was spotted in Glasgow Prestwick on October 14, 2004; Tenerife (Canary Islands), where AN-12 visits are extremely rare; Maastricht/Aachen on December 22, 2003; Lisbon on June 7, 2004; Ostend on September 6, 2002; Stockholm Arlanda on November 5, 2002; Helsinki Vantaa (with the name Heli Air painted on its fuselage) on October 18, 2005; Budapest Ferihagy on November 19, 2005 (as Heli Air); and St. John’s, Newfoundland on November 15, 2005 (as Heli Air). Bright’s LZ-BRV AN12 was seen at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion on May 25, 2005; Zurich, May 24, 2005; and Palma de Mallorca on February 18, 2005.

    Bout’s Air Bas and Irbis Air Russian-made transport aircraft were spotted throughout 2004 at Bilad airbase in northern Iraq. Bilad is the airfield near Camp Anaconda, one of the first detention camps set up by U.S. forces and the site of the first reported cases of U.S. prisoner torture. A Belgrade-based airline, Kosmas Air, also linked to Bout, is reportedly transporting weapons from Serbia to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Bright Aviation AN-12 at Zurich airport in May 2005. Bout’s aircraft crossed paths at numerous airports with CIA prisoner flights.

    The firm and documented connections between Bout (the smuggler for Al Qaeda and the Taliban) and Christian fundamentalists and Russian-Israeli mob interests provide yet more proof that the forces behind 9-11 and other terrorist attacks represented far more than a bunch of cave dwelling Islamist insurgents in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As 9-11 co-chair Thomas Kean recently said, if there was a wider conspiracy behind 9-11 it would be a "monstrous" act. Other than Wahhabi mosques and madrassas around the world, the monsters behind 9-11 and other attacks can also be found in mega-churches in the South, oil company board rooms in Houston, airfields in the emirates of the Persian Gulf, Hasidic-run "blood diamond" centers in Europe and New York, GOP lobbying firms on K Street, and dank and dark arms warehouses in Ukraine and Moldova.