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What did Putin Know About Flynn?

U-S lawmakers say there is new evidence that Soviet-era leaders were backing plans for a secret war to be fought by Soviet agents in America during the cold war.

Former agents of the Soviet intelligence service, the K-G-B, say there were plans for sabotage, assassination, and perhaps even the use of small nuclear devices on U-S soil as late as the 1970’s. And you think Moscow is trustworthy? Remember, China and Russia are the lead team now dealing with the North Korea threat.

Disinformation across ages: Russia’s old but effective weapon of influence

Fragment of the cover of Disinformation, a book by Ion Mihai Pacepa, ex-deputy chief of communist Romania’s foreign intelligence, and law professor Ronald J. RychlakFragment of the cover of Disinformation, a book by Ion Mihai Pacepa, ex-deputy chief of communist Romania’s foreign intelligence, and law professor Ronald J. Rychlak 

Article by: Marko Mihkelsoni

I. The Metropol gala

It may have seemed like any other Thursday in Moscow. The dismally overcast sky and near-freezing temperature lay heavy on the city, heralding the darkening days of winter. On that morning, the historical Art Nouveau-style Hotel Metropol Moscow, situated between the Kremlin and the FSB (formerly KGB) headquarters, was slowly and quietly filling with important guests. It is unlikely that many passers-by noticed the members of Russia’s power elite, headed by President Vladimir Putin, arriving one by one at the hidden entrance.

It was 10 December 2015. Russia’s global propaganda television channel RT (formerly Russia Today) was celebrating its 10th anniversary with a lavish gala. The organizers had put great effort into hand-picking the guests: the tables were filled with high-calibre figures active in the fields of politics, the economy, and propaganda.

When analyzing images taken at the event in light of the information available today, it is immediately clear to a watchful eye that this was a carefully planned Russian active influence operation. Its main objective was not to promote the television channel but to prepare for the massive interference in the upcoming US presidential elections.

Retired US General Michael T. Flynn had taken his place at Putin’s right hand. By that time, it was well known in Moscow that Flynn could play a key role in advising presidential candidate Donald Trump on national security issues. A battle-hardened veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Flynn’s pronounced negativity towards Islam suited Russia very well.

Putin and General Flynn at the celebration of RT anniversary in Moscow, 10 December 2015. Photo: Mikhail Klimentyev

Flynn did not fail to meet the expectations of those who had ordered the speech. For 40,000 dollars, the retired general scolded Obama’s administration for its Middle East policy and kept mum about Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, as well as the many civilian casualties of air strikes in Syria. One must not forget that during the Metropol gala the international situation was rather tense, especially when it came to Russia’s relationship with the West. Only a couple of weeks had passed since Turkey had shot down a Russian Su-24M attack aircraft on 24 November 2015. Flynn was not bothered by this.

Putin did not shy away from egging Flynn on during their dinner-table talk. Having essentially been removed from the position of director of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Flynn had a bone to pick with President Barack Obama. Thus, Putin’s jaundiced views on Obama and Hillary Clinton fell on fertile ground. Flynn admitted in a later interview with Dana Priest of The Washington Post that the only thing he remembers from his table talk with Putin was the latter’s deep mistrust of the Obama administration.

Flynn had likely been under surveillance for a while. When he was still the director of the DIA in 2013, the three-star General Flynn received an unusually warm welcome in Moscow. He was the first—and so far the only—high-profile US officer to have entered the headquarters of Russia’s Main Intelligence Agency (GRU). Flynn himself remembers this with great pride because he was asked to conduct a masterclass on the professional development of leadership. The mind boggles at the thought of what the listeners made of him at the time. After all, countering the activities of the US and its allies was and continues to be one of the GRU’s main priorities.

Nevertheless, it is evident that Flynn ending up as the main guest at the December 2015 gala was no coincidence; the role of RT commentator was merely a suitable cover. However, Flynn was not the only one to attract attention on that table of ten bigwigs.

Right across from Putin sat another fateful figure from the US—the Green Party’s presidential candidate Jill Stein, who is known for her accentuated friendliness towards Russia. She also made a presentation at the gala, although her presence was advertised more modestly than Flynn’s. Still, it was Stein who became the dark horse of the November 2016 elections.

To-be U.S. presidential candidate Jill Stein in Moscow’s Red Square, December 2015. Screenshot from a video

To-be U.S. presidential candidate Jill Stein in Moscow’s Red Square, December 2015. Screenshot from a video

Stein drew more votes in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan than Trump’s margin of victory over Hillary Clinton. Stein received the votes of 1.4 million people nationwide, i.e. 1% of voters. All this could have been an additional reason for stopping Clinton from becoming president.

Putin was not the only one gracing Flynn and Stein with his undivided attention at the main table. The conversation was steered by the then Kremlin Chief of Staff and former KGB general Sergey Ivanov, the president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov (who is also regarded in intelligence circles as Putin’s national defence adviser), one of the Kremlin’s leading propaganda chiefs Alexey Gromov, and RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, who is known to be friends with Putin.

In order to help Flynn and Stein blend in with the crowd, the main table also included Willy Wimmer, a veteran German politician from Angela Merkel’s party and a former member of the Bundestag (1976–2009), and the former Czech foreign minister, Cyril Svoboda. Both are also known for their pro-Russian attitude. For instance, Wimmer has said that pursuing an anti-Russia policy is a crime against the whole of Europe. As expected, Wimmer’s analysis has no room for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, because he believes that the coup in Kyiv was caused by the West.

The picture of what transpired at the Metropol would be incomplete without mention of Julian Assange, whose presentation was broadcast via a live link and who was later suspected of leaking 20,000 emails stolen from the server of the US Democratic Party; former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, who has justified Russia’s aggression against Ukraine with the need for protection from NATO; and a former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, Raymond McGovern, who had become a scandalous political activist in the 1990s. McGovern later admitted to having voted for Stein in the 2016 elections.

As the event at the Metropol drew to a close, few people realized that something big was happening. Back then, nobody outside his immediate circle knew Flynn. Today, his name features in the international media almost every day, and with good reason. The most dramatic outside interference in the US presidential elections is a fact, and Flynn played one of the key roles in it.

Trump and Flynn during the 2016 presidential race. Photo: George Frey

Trump and Flynn during the 2016 presidential race. Photo: George Frey

Even though his career as President Trump’s national security adviser was cut short, his suspicious and covert ties managed to cause serious damage to the reputation of the US as the leader of the Western world. The story does not end there. One thing is certain: this is the first time the global public has felt the reach of Russia’s influence operations and the professionalism of its subterfuge so clearly. Many see this as something new and unexpected but, in reality, it was a long time coming.

II. The Marquis de Custine’s timeless testament

In 1839, a French aristocrat, the Marquis de Custine, traveled to Russia to seek support for his reactionary views. He was resentful of the representative democracy of his own country and thought it would lead to mob rule. He was a well-known travel writer and had published eloquent accounts of Spain and Italy.

Custine got the idea to write about Russia from the 1835 book by Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, in which the author foretells a great future for Russia and the US. Custine was later called “the Russian Tocqueville”.

He spent most of his time in Russia in Saint Petersburg, but he also visited Moscow and Yaroslavl. Custine was interested in the lives, customs, and mindsets of both the aristocracy and common folk. His hopes of finding support for his ideas in Russian authoritarianism were promptly crushed. He was especially appalled by the fact that Russians were ready to cheerfully collaborate with their own enslavers.

Having collected only one year’s worth of immediate impressions and information, Custine managed to turn the material into a book titled La Russie en 1839, which captures the nature of Russia extremely well. The book was so successful that for a long time it was banned by the Russian authorities. The unabridged version of Custine’s book was finally published in Russia 157 years later, in 1996.

Among other things, the author noticed the tendency of Russians to deceive their guests or alter reality. Custine wrote that everything in the country was an illusion and the professional misleading of foreigners was a practice only known in Russia.

In 1839, Custine recorded the thoughts of a noble Russian companion on the role of lie in his government’s policy

A former US ambassador in Moscow, General Walter Bedell Smith, wrote an introduction to the English edition of Custine’s book in 1951. Smith stressed that Custine’s political analysis was “so penetrating and timeless that it could be called the best work so far produced about the Soviet Union.” All of today’s extensive historical books on Russia owe thanks to Custine’s contribution. In Russia, however, the Frenchman is seen as the father of classic Russophobia.

Custine was not the first or only person to draw attention to Russia’s “Susaninist” nature. Even during the Livonian War (1558–83), the tsar’s negotiators tried to leave the misleading impression that Tallinn was situated on ancient Russian land and that Livonia should, therefore, be ruled by Moscow. The “villages” of Prince Potemkin, a favorite of Catherine the Great, have even acquired a proverbial meaning.

III. The KGB and the beginnings of disinformation as a science

The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 changed everything. All previous experiences paled before the extent to which deliberate lying, deception and misleading became a conscious choice in the forge of the Bolshevik special services. In the course of a century, many people from all over the world, from popes to presidents, from countries to international organizations, witnessed the disinformation skills of the Cheka/GPU/NKVD/KGB/FSB and the implementation of active influence measures in the service of Russian foreign policy.

The use of disinformation as a tactical weapon of influence became organized as early as 1923, when the Deputy Director of the GPU, Józef Unszlicht, formed a special disinformation unit to conduct active intelligence operations. Born in Poland, Unszlicht was one of the founders of the Cheka and saw disinformation as an excellent opportunity to create successful diversions in open Western societies.

On 22 December 1922, Unszlicht and Roman Pillar wrote to Stalin’s Politburo that the special disinformation unit should focus on the creation and distribution of misleading information. The best way to spread disinformation in a credible manner was to use the media of open societies. Stalin and the Politburo approved the proposal and urged Unszlicht to proceed.

The first notable and successful use of disinformation was Operation Trust. This ran from 1923 to 1927 with the aim to mislead the White Army and monarchist organizations in exile and foreign intelligence institutions with false information about an extensive resistance organization, Trust, operating within the Soviet Union. The illusion helped to lure many anti-Soviet (Boris Savinkov and Pavel Dolgorukov) and foreign (Sidney Reilly) agents into Russia, who were then arrested and executed. Interestingly, both the beginning and the end of the operation had close ties to Estonia and Latvia.

Trial of Boris Savinkov, an ardent anti-Bolshevik, who was lured to the USSR by Soviet secret services in August 1924. He was sentenced to 10-year imprisonment and was said to have committed suicide in jail in May 1925. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Trust was followed by a number of other known and less-known operations that have provided material for hundreds of books. One of the best sources is the collection of notes made by Vasili Mitrokhin during his 30 years as a KGB archivist before he fled to the West in 1992. The historian Christopher Andrew has written two hefty books based on these notes.

Another person who deserves a mention is Ion Pacepa, a general in the Romanian communist special service Securitate, who fled to the US in 1978. In 2013, he published the book Disinformation, in which he uses his own immediate knowledge to shed light on the creation of false narratives such as the framing of Pope Pius XII as “Hitler’s Pope” during World War II.

In the Soviet Union, disinformation became a science in its own right and was honed to perfection over the years. The term was first used in The Great Soviet Encyclopaedia in 1952, where it was presented as classic disinformation. According to the book, disinformation constitutes false news distributed in the media with the intention of misleading the public. The entry added that such tactics were used by the West against the Soviet Union. The truth was, naturally, the exact opposite.

Curiously, “disinformation” did not enter Western dictionaries until the late 1980s. The English word is directly derived from the Russian дезинформация [dezinformatsiya — ed.].

In the late 1960s, the Director of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, took disinformation as a successful instrument of influence to a whole new level. Andropov himself said that

“disinformation is like cocaine—sniff once or twice, it may not change your life. If you use it every day, though, it will make you an addict—a different man.”

andropov-plaque

FSB reinstalled the memorial plaque to Andropov, which was dismantled in 1991, on its Moscow headquarters in December 1999, shortly before ex-FSB director Vladimir Putin became acting president of Russia. Photo: Anatoly Novak

In general, it is customary for foreign intelligence services to be created on the basis of collected information to advise a country’s political authorities in matters of foreign relations. However, in addition to collecting past facts, the tasks of Russian foreign intelligence involve manipulating the future.

Furthermore, the masterclass of Russian special services includes the creation of a new past to destabilize the opponent, which is then used to tamper with the latter’s international image. I will look at Estonian examples later, but Russian attempts to change the past to serve its foreign-policy interests are best illustrated by the subject of World War II.

It is crucial to understand that the fall of the Soviet Union changed nothing. The KGB was broken up and reorganized, but its tasks remained roughly the same. Mistrust in the Western system of values and security persisted.

For instance, in his 2007 book Comrade J, Pete Earley uses the story of Sergei Tretyakov, a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer who defected while at the UN in 2000, to demonstrate how Moscow continued with active intelligence and influence operations against the US even in the 1990s, the friendliest period in their relationship.

Tretyakov makes a thought-provoking statement in the book:

I want to warn Americans. As a people, you are very naive about Russia and its intentions. You believe because the Soviet Union no longer exists, Russia now is your friend. It isn’t, and I can show you how the SVR [Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service — ed.] is trying to destroy the US even today and even more than the KGB did during the Cold War.

Thanks to the endless possibilities of the internet, disinformation and national propaganda acquired an entirely new meaning with the rise to power of the former KGB intelligence officer and FSB director Vladimir Putin in 1999. The KGB’s machinery was polished and harnessed to serve Russia’s imperialist interests. The state quickly assumed control over the media, and the leading television stations became the world’s most professional propaganda outlets.

The authorities turned their attention to information security, which quickly found its way into new strategy documents. Its nuances were made famous by Russian general and current Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, in his notorious doctrine.

The introduction of social media and its rapid development have proved to be an unprecedented goldmine for intelligence services. The distribution of disinformation is considerably easier in today’s world than it was in the late 1980s, for instance.To compare: it took more than three years for the KGB’s Operation INFEKTION to succeed in spreading a global rumor that the HIV virus originated from the Pentagon’s biological weapons program. This information leak first appeared in a small pro-Soviet Indian paper, Patriot, on 17 July 1983. Two years later, this was referenced by a popular Soviet weekly, Literaturnaya Gazeta, as the source of the scandalous story. From there it found its way to the front page of a British tabloid, and by April 1987 the fake news had been published by the mainstream media of 50 countries.

A standard message featured by a leftist paper within the AIDS disinformation campaign

A standard message featured by a leftist paper within the AIDS disinformation campaign

On the eve of the decisive round of the 2017 French presidential elections, the favorite, Emmanuel Macron, fell victim to a massive hacking attack. The database of his e-mails and other documents went viral on a file-sharing service within minutes. In the space of just three hours, the post was shared around 47,000 times, and half a day later it was trending worldwide on Twitter. Even though Russia has denied involvement, the cyber trails prove otherwise.

In the noughties, several Western intelligence leaders were already complaining that Russia had become more active than it had been during the Cold War, but this went largely unnoticed. Russia was off the radar while the focus lay on Afghanistan and the Middle East in general. The Western political elite began to regard Russia as a threat only after the occupation and annexation of Crimea. This also brought Moscow’s activities back into the sights of intelligence services.

IV. Estonia as a target of Russian information attacks

Depicting Estonia (and Latvia) as a country that discriminates against minorities and promotes Nazism has been one of Russia’s largest and most consistent international deception operations in the last 25 years. The reasons for this are numerous, the main one being Moscow’s strategic interest in restoring its authority over the Baltic States. Russia became particularly pushy in the 1990s when Estonia and the other Baltic States were applying for membership of NATO and the European Union.

On 4 December 1991, only three months after the restoration of independence, the Estonian foreign ministry was forced to send its Soviet counterpart a note condemning President Mikhail Gorbachev’s hostile attitude towards the Baltic States during his appearance on Soviet Central Television the previous day. Gorbachev first blamed the Baltic States for violating the human rights of minorities and then added that Russians, Ukrainians and other minorities living in the Baltic States had requested protection from the Soviet Union. Estonian diplomats treated this as a threat to national security.

Active measures continued to be taken in this spirit on both diplomatic and journalistic levels for years. Essentially, it has not stopped, even today. The situation was particularly severe in the 1990s when Russia tried to influence the West to ignore the Baltic States. Moscow also tried to discourage Estonia from adopting the Aliens Act in 1993 by issuing threats bordering on the undiplomatic.

For instance, on 18 June 1993, the then Russian deputy foreign minister, Vitaly Churkin, who later became Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, said on Radio Moscow that: “Russian-Estonian relations are clearly deteriorating. We are currently preparing a package of serious diplomatic, political and perhaps not only political measures with regard to Estonia.” Six days later, President Boris Yeltsin said that Estonia had “forgotten” geopolitical and demographic reality and threatened that Russia had the means to refresh its memory. Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev did not hold back on 14 August 1993, saying that international relations in the Baltic States had “strong potential for violence and unrest.”

On 23 August 1993—exactly 54 years after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact—Yeltsin’s press secretary, Vyacheslav Kostikov, naively stated that

“the forces that try to push Russia out of the Baltic States must consider that Russia governed the Baltic geopolitical area for centuries and it has invested great material and intellectual resources into its development.”

On 2 March 1994, Artur Laast, a diplomat at the Estonian Embassy in Moscow, was invited to the Russian foreign ministry, where the head of the Second European Department, Yuri Fokin, made a threatening oral statement about President Lennart Meri’s criticism of Russia in his speech at the annual Matthiae-Mahl dinner in Hamburg on 25 February. The memo of the meeting ends with Laast quoting the Russian diplomat: “If the course that is focused on aggravating the relations between the two neighboring countries does not change, Estonia will assume full responsibility.”

In the 1994 report “Russian Threats to Estonia” by the embassy in Moscow, an Estonian diplomat discusses political hazards among other questions. The author of the report writes that Russia

“attempts to influence Estonia by damaging us on the international arena. For this, it uses the well-known thesis of violating the human rights of the Russian minority, spreads rumors that Estonia has become a transit country for crime and that Estonian citizens participate in military conflicts in Tajikistan and Chechnya, and accuses us of supporting separatism in Russia.”

These are only a few examples from the archive of the Estonian foreign ministry that illustrate Russia’s diplomatic pressure on Estonia, but also on the West. At the time, occupying forces were still in Estonia. The troops were withdrawn on 31 August 1994.

When the First Chechen War broke out at the end of 1994, Russian media gave extensive coverage to a false news story about alleged Baltic female biathletes serving as snipers on Dudayev’s side. As the so-called “White Tights,” the phantom snipers even featured in songs.

From my time as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, I clearly remember a detailed, multi-page account in the daily Moskovskiye Novosti of how Estonians were skilled and disciplined killers: all this to distort our image and influence public opinion at home and abroad.

World War II has remained one of the main arguments in the information war against Estonia over the last 25 years. The tension grew at the beginning of Putin’s tenure and finally led to the Bronze Night events in 2007. Russia has not made much progress on this matter or on other topics.

Russian anti-Estonian cartoon attacks Estonian schools as an alleged hotbed of Nazism as opposed to Russian/Soviet-style “peace education.” Source: newsbalt.ru

Russian anti-Estonian cartoon attacks Estonian schools as an alleged hotbed of Nazism as opposed to Russian/Soviet-style “peace education.” Source: newsbalt.ru

Estonia has now been a member of NATO and the EU for 13 years and will use its presidency of the EU Council to collaborate with other member states to implement more effective means to combat Russia’s information attacks and disinformation campaigns.

V. In place of an epilogue

In 1930, Professor Dmitry Manuilsky of Moscow’s Leninist School of Political Warfare wrote that Russia was creating the world’s most progressive peace movement to lull the West to sleep. Convinced that a war between the two great systems was inevitable, Manuilsky thought that

“foolish and decadent capitalist countries will be happy to use the opportunity to cooperate with us to bring about their own destruction. They will use every opportunity to become friends. As soon as the enemy lets their guard down, we will crush them with our iron fist.”

The Soviet empire used various means to achieve its geopolitical goals and, to an extent, world domination. At the forefront of the campaign in the free world were the “useful idiots” and agents of influence.Moscow took good care of its mouthpieces. In the 1980s, French communists were paid 24 million dollars, while Americans received 21 million dollars. Finnish communists received a generous reward of 16.5 million dollars for their pro-Russian views. During the final two decades of the Soviet Union, Moscow distributed more than 400 million dollars of such benefits all over the world, mainly to extremist communist movements.

The fight for the hearts and minds of the free world was on, and it has not subsided even today. Russia’s new clients are mainly extremist forces of both left and right, and by supporting them Moscow tries to weaken the integrity of the European Union and NATO, disrupt the internal stability of their member countries, and create the circumstances for a Finlandization of Europe.

Russia has managed to make a right mess of America’s domestic politics. However, the Dutch and French elections provided some assurance that Moscow’s influence operations have limits and that Europe is not disintegrating. Then again, the fight continues and it is too early to draw any final conclusions.

The international debate has provided many good ideas and political suggestions to counter Russia’s aggression, information attacks, and propaganda. History provides good counsel, even here.

On 14 April 1950, only 12 months after the founding of NATO, the US National Security Council’s special task force presented President Harry Truman with top-secret report No. 68. The 58-page document was essentially the basis for the US long-term policy on the Soviet Union, which culminated with the victory in the Cold War in the late 1980s. The report described the challenge posed by the Soviet Union as something that could cause “the destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself.” The Soviet Union was treated as the exact opposite of the US, with Moscow’s expansionist policy deemed a great threat to the security of the free world.

Among other topics, the report also highlighted the fight against the Soviet Union’s influence operations. The document stressed that the campaign for truth must above all become a fight for people’s minds.

Putin boasts of Russia’s fight against ISIS in Syria to the filmmaker Oliver Stone showing a U.S. video from Afghanistan. Screenshots from Stone’s film The Putin Interviews (2017)

A lot has changed by 2017 but, in general, Russia and the US, together with the latter’s allies, remain in fundamental opposition. Hence it is vital that the allies’ conflict-avoidance strategy looks beyond the false hope of solving problems with meaningless dialogue.

C’mon White House, NEVER Trust China

Primer: Moscow hired thousands of North Koreans to build the infrastructure for the Sochi Olympics. Russia still uses North Korean slaves for mining and forestry. The North Koreans are hired slaves that have to send their pay checks back the the Kim regime. Not to be outdone, Qatar is doing the same with slaves from the DPRK, as they are hired to build the stadium for the FIFA World Cup Soccer games in 2020.

North Koreans are hired out to foreign corrupt governments to work 20 hours a day with a pay rate of $100 per month (US$) and 70% of that goes back to Pyongyang as a loyalty payment.

By the way, China, Kuwait, Libya, Africa, Oman and several other countries hire the slaves and their living conditions don’t even qualify as slums, they are much worse.

So, while there is much worry about the missile and nuclear program at the hands of North Korea, China is a major culprit in full assistance and cooperation in that regard. Further, China has aided North Korea and other terror regimes in skirting not only United States sanctions, but those from applied by other nations.

Over the last eight years, the Obama administration has hardly taken any aggressive stance with regard to North Korea and consequences except to shut off humanitarian exports to the country. President Trump meanwhile is trusting Russia and China to deal with North Korea? Worse mistake yet.

Deeper dive…

The Global Web That Keeps North Korea Running

Pyongyang’s ties with 164 countries help it amass money and know-how to develop nuclear weapons

WSJ: North Korea may be one of the world’s most isolated countries, but the tightening sanctions regime it has lived under for the past two decades is anything but impermeable.

An examination of North Korea’s global connections reveals that even as it becomes increasingly dependent on China, Pyongyang maintains economic and diplomatic ties with many nations. Those links—from commercial and banking relationships to scientific training, arms sales, monument-building and restaurants—have helped it amass the money and technical know-how to develop nuclear weapons and missiles.

The nature and extent of North Korea’s global ties comes from current and formal officials, researchers, North Korean defectors, U.N. decisions, NGO’s and an analysis of economic statistics.

North Korea: What Comes After the ICBM Test?

In some cases, North Korea leans on old allies, particularly those like Cuba from the former Communist bloc, or those like Syria that are similarly hostile to the U.S. In others, notably in Africa, it has more transactional relationships to supply items such as cheap weaponry or military training. In the Middle East, it supplies laborers for construction work and pockets almost all their earnings.

Sanctions against North Korea haven’t been as broad as those applied to Iran over its nuclear program, nor as rigidly enforced.

David S. Cohen, undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence during the Obama administration, wrote in an op-ed in April that “North Korea has gotten off relatively easy, especially as compared with Iran.”

Trying to crack down on North Korean business activities is like a game of Whac-A-Mole. North Korean defectors have detailed how the regime uses front companies to conceal its commercial activities in foreign countries, or adopts business names that obscure their identity by avoiding using North Korea’s full name, thereby benefiting from confusion over whether the entity is North or South Korean.

Pyongyang maintains diplomatic ties with 164 countries and has embassies in 47, according to the National Committee on North Korea, a Washington-based nongovernmental organization, and the Honolulu-based East-West Center.

Although it lags far behind China, India has been North Korea’s second biggest trade partner in the past couple of years, buying commodities including silver and selling it chemicals among other goods. Russia has exported petroleum products to North Korea and imported items such as garments and frozen fish. Last year, North Korea attempted to export military communications equipment to Eritrea via front companies in Malaysia, according to a recent U.N. report.

Most North Koreans abroad are involved in providing funds for the state, defectors say. One of the primary roles of North Korean diplomats is to help develop and maintain cash flows for the regime, according to former embassy officials. North Korea missions typically have to be self-financed to maximize revenue for the state, these people say.

In recent months, under pressure from the Trump administration, there are signs more countries have begun to clamp down on North Korea. In February, Bulgaria had Pyongyang send home two diplomats in its embassy in Sofia, in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions passed in September calling on countries to reduce the number of North Korean diplomats abroad.

Italy this year moved four North Koreans studying at the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste to switch to less-sensitive majors in line with a Security Council resolution calling for member nations not to provide education that could aid Pyongyang’s weapons program.

In March, Senegal said it suspended issuing visas for artisans from North Korea’s Mansudae Art Studio, a state-run organization that has erected monumental sculptures across Africa.

This image, from North Korea's KRT, shows what it said was the launch of a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile.

This image, from North Korea’s KRT, shows what it said was the launch of a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile. Photo: /Associated Press

More than 50,000 North Korean workers are employed abroad, according to the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a Seoul-based think tank, many in construction or factory jobs. For these workers, wages are paid directly to North Korean officials, raising hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the state, human-rights groups say.

These ties are under scrutiny as Pyongyang’s success at launching a missile that could reach Alaska is escalating the crisis over its weapons program. This week’s missile test took place on the back of a Chinese truck imported to North Korea for logging purposes, according to analysts.

U.N. sanctions are primarily intended to block North Korea’s illegitimate trade and revenue streams that have a suspected link to its weapons programs. The U.N. doesn’t target all of Pyongyang’s business activities abroad, such as the chain of restaurants it operates in Asia and the Middle East, or its dispatch of laborers.

U.S. sanctions go further in trying to disrupt North Korea’s trade and revenue, including a recent move to block access to the U.S. financial system for a bank in China on which Pyongyang relied. The U.S. has sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a move that would freeze any of his assets in America.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday called on the global community to stop doing business with Pyongyang.

Video from a North Korean state news bulletin Tuesday was said to show leader Kim Jong Un applauding after the launch.

Video from a North Korean state news bulletin Tuesday was said to show leader Kim Jong Un applauding after the launch. Photo: Yonhap News/Zuma Press

This week, Sen. Cory Gardner (R., Colo.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subpanel on East Asia, said he was drafting legislation that he says would create a “global embargo” on North Korea.

“We need to shut off North Korea’s access to oil, to trade, to currency, to financial institutions,” he said in an interview Thursday, calling for “Iran-style” sanctions. “They are far from being ‘sanctioned out.’ They are certainly isolated, but they have to recognize they ain’t seen nothing yet.”

China has had close ties to North Korea since the 1950s when it sent troops to fight U.S.-led forces backing the South in the Korean War.

In 2001, China accounted for around 18% of North Korea’s exports and 20% of its imports, ranking behind Japan on both measures, according to customs figures compiled by Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity.

Since U.N. sanctions on North Korea were tightened in 2009, Japan and other countries have curtailed commercial ties with Pyongyang, leaving China as by far its biggest trade partner.

For the past five years, China has accounted for more than 80% of North Korea’s imports and exports, providing an economic lifeline even as political relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have deteriorated.

During that period, China has imported mostly industrial raw materials from North Korea, especially coal, but also seafood and clothing such as men’s suits and overcoats.

In recent days, President Donald Trump has expressed frustration with China for expanding trade with North Korea despite U.S. appeals to exert more pressure.

China says it enforces U.N. sanctions and since February it has banned imports of North Korean coal—one of Pyongyang’s main sources of hard currency.

However, U.N. sanctions still allow trade that isn’t deemed to benefit North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and China’s customs figures show that its exports to North Korea have increased this year. Crucially, China continues to be North Korea’s biggest source of crude oil, according to diplomats and experts on the region.

Much of North Korea’s trade takes place over the 880-mile land border with China, which is porous and sparsely guarded. Small Chinese and North Korean companies quietly ferry coal, iron ore and other resources over the border, far from checkpoints.

U.N. sanctions introduced in March 2016 banned exports of North Korean iron ore unless they were exclusively for “livelihood purposes”—a loophole China continues to exploit.

While North Korea gained notoriety in the early 2000s for state-backed exports of illegal drugs and counterfeit U.S. dollars, Pyongyang has mostly shifted its strategy to allow private North Korean enterprises to take the lead, with the regime collecting bribes from these enterprises in a primitive system of taxation, says Justin Hastings, a lecturer at the University of Sydney who has researched North Korea’s overseas smuggling networks.

The shift in strategy means that North Korea can outsource some of the risk involved in the trade while continuing to fill its coffers.

“North Korea is not infinitely adaptable, but it’s far more adaptable than people have thought and its ability to adapt to sanctions has not been reached yet,” Mr. Hastings said.

One informal Chinese trader that Mr. Hastings interviewed for a soon-to-be-published academic paper was importing truckloads and boatloads of North Korean iron ore and other minerals across the river into China for resale as recently as a year ago, when the interview took place.

 

 

Hey Hezbollah, the DNA Proves it…

Pay up Iran, the victim’s families deserve compensation. Obama and Kerry gave you billions.

ToI: Newly analyzed DNA evidence from the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing in Buenos Aires could provide a definitive link to suicide bomber Ibrahim Berro, the Hezbollah terrorist who carried out the attack and whose body was never found or identified until now.

NBC

The discovery was announced on Monday by the AMIA Special Investigation Unit of the Argentinian General Prosecution, two weeks before the 23rd anniversary of the bombing that killed 85 and injured hundreds.

The final report after two years of investigation by a forensics team, reveals for the first time the existence of a genetic profile among the preserved remains in the laboratory of the Federal Police that “doesn’t belong to any known victims.”

With this information prosecutors have taken steps “in the field of international cooperation to try to match the profile obtained with that of samples of relatives of the suspected individual.”

A man walks over the rubble after a bomb exploded at the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 1994. (AFP/Ali Burafi)

A man walks over the rubble after a bomb exploded at the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 1994. (AFP/Ali Burafi)

In 2005 special prosecutor Alberto Nisman identified Berro as the suicide bomber who carried out the attack. Berro’s brothers denied he was involved, claiming he was killed in fighting in Lebanon. Some Argentinian journalists also cast doubt on the assertion.

In May 2016, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI director James Comey met in Washington, DC, with Argentine Justice Minister Germán Garavano and offered to extend technical help to the Argentinean Justice Department regarding the AMIA attack and the death of Nisman.

Prosecutors Sabrina Namer, Roberto Salum and Leonardo Filippini have led the AMIA Special Investigatory Unit since their predecessor Nisman was discovered shot dead in his apartment in January 2015, hours before he was scheduled to appear in Congress. Nisman had been about to present allegations that then-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner orchestrated a secret deal to cover up Iranian officials’ alleged role in the AMIA bombing. Fernandez denied the allegations and judges threw out the case. It was reopened one year ago, though no conclusions have yet been announced.

Late Argentinean public prosecutor Alberto Nisman gives a news conference in Buenos Aires, May 20, 2009. (Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images)

Late Argentinean public prosecutor Alberto Nisman gives a news conference in Buenos Aires, May 20, 2009. (Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images)

The two years work on the DNA analysis was conducted by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, the Forensic Medical Body and the University of Buenos Aires. The same team one year ago identified victim number 85 of the AMIA attack.

*** Clarin

Per documents posted on Wikipedia:

Berro grew up in Lebanon. According to his brothers, around 1989 he changed radically, leaving school and becoming interested in Hezbollah, where his brother Ali was an active member. His mother feared Berro would end up badly, and applied for a visa for him to go to Detroit — to where some of the family had emigrated — but the application was turned down because Berro was underage. He then traveled to Iran, where he presumably received training.

Berro is suspected of having entered Argentina near Ciudad del Este — a region known for smuggling, drugs, and other illegal activities — where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina share a border, accompanied by a man named Ahmed Saad.

The bombing, in which a van full of explosives opposite the AMIA building was detonated, was similar to the March 1992 Israeli Embassy attack in Buenos Aires, possibly also committed by Hezbollah. The attacks, it appears, occurred with the support of Iran,[3] though the Iranian government repeatedly denied these charges.[4]

Two months after the attack, Berro was reported by radio stations in Lebanon to have been killed by the Israeli army, apparently an attempt to cover up his role in the attack in Argentina. After the bombing, Berro’s wife received $300 a month from Hezbollah.[5]

In late 2005, Berro was identified as the bombing perpetrator after years of investigation and speculation into who committed the bombing. According to official Argentine government prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, Hussein’s two US-based brothers had testified that he had joined the radical Shia militant group Hezbollah. “The brothers’ testimony was substantial, rich in detail and showed that he was the one who was killed,” Nisman added.[6] A U.S. House resolution in July 2004 declared Berro was the suicide bomber,[7] but the identification was not declared positively until November 2005 after Berro’s relatives in Detroit identified his photograph. Berro was also recognized with “80 percent certain[ty]” [8] by eyewitness Nicolasa Romero, who saw the driver in the van near the AMIA building. Some Argentine journalists, however, have expressed reservations about these alleged findings; in an op-ed for La Nación, Jorge Urien Berri objected to those who “insist in taken hypotheses as proven when they not”, and contested Berro’s involvement in the incidents”.[9] Berro’s two brothers also had denied this version in April 2005 before a US prosecutor, stating that Berro had died on September 9, 1994 during combat in Lebanon. No proper autopsies or DNA tests were done. The police dumped in a bin the head thought to be that of the bomber.[6]

Berro’s brother, after apparently identifying Berro in a photograph, now denies that Berro had any role in the attack. “They changed the truth,” he said. “I gave them the photo [of Berro] at 17 years old, but when I saw photo in the news, I said, ‘How are they publishing the photo that I gave them a few months back? They said in the news that I identified the photo, and it’s not true. I gave them the photo of him at 17, but I don’t know who is in the others.”[8]

In a May 2007 interview, James Cheek, Clinton’s Ambassador to Argentina at the time of the bombing, told La Nación,[10] “To my knowledge, there was never any real evidence [of Iranian responsibility]. They never came up with anything.” The hottest lead in the case, he recalled, was an Iranian defector named Manoucher Moatamer, who “supposedly had all this information.” But Moatamer turned out to be only a dissatisfied low-ranking official without the knowledge of government decision-making that he had claimed. “We finally decided that he wasn’t credible,” Cheek recalled. Ron Goddard, then deputy chief of the US Mission in Buenos Aires, confirmed Cheek’s account. He recalled that investigators found nothing linking Iran to the bombing. “The whole Iran thing seemed kind of flimsy,” Goddard said.

Report: Terror Acts Committed by Refugees

Terror-related acts committed by refugees widespread, according to new report

FNC: At least 61 people who came to the United States as refugees engaged in terrorist activities between 2002 and 2016, according to an explosive new report coming on the heels of the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of much of President Trump’s travel ban.

The alarming report by the Heritage Foundation identified scores of refugees, including many who came prior to 2002, as having taken part in activities ranging from lying to investigators about terror plots, to actually taking part in them. The report, aimed at reforming the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, or USRAP, calls for stricter limits and restrictions on refugees.

“There is no universal right to migrate, resettlement is not the solution to mass displacement, and U.S. policymakers have a responsibility to ensure that the United States takes in only as many refugees as it can safely vet and assimilate,” the report states. “The United States operates the program not because it is obligated to resettle refugees, but because the U.S. is a humane country and USRAP serves its national interests.”

The report, written by policy analyst David Inserra, could lend weight to the Trump administration’s effort to curtail the number of refugees who come to the U.S. every year. But perhaps most worrisome, the report warns that no amount of refugee vetting can account for the “1.5 generation” — those who come to the U.S. with peaceful intentions and then become radicalized while living in America.

ISIS GUNNED DOWN PREGNANT WOMEN, BABIES, FORMER NAVY SEAL RECALLS

“Given the threat that we found in the 1.5 generation, more needs to be done in the U.S. assimilation process,” said John Cooper, spokesman for the Heritage Foundation. “We can’t vet an 8-year-old to see if he will become a terrorist when he turns 18 or 28. Instead, we as a country need to rethink the way we assimilate refugees, and immigrants as a whole for that matter.

“In the past few decades, the United States has drifted from its strong assimilation ethos, and the terrorism in Europe paints a disturbing picture of where non-assimilation leads,” he added.

The Trump administration has taken measures to both limit and more tightly screen refugees. Earlier this year, the administration reduced the number of refugees that it would accept this fiscal year from the Obama administration’s intended 110,000 to 50,000 – and that cap has almost been reached.

“A review is especially critical following the Obama administration’s rapid, and largely unprecedented, expansion of the program in the final year of his administration,” Cooper added. “Any administration has a responsibility to ensure all existing refugee and immigration programs, including the USRAP, best serve U.S. interests.”

A U.S. State Department official told Fox News the administration will soon provide guidance regarding those already scheduled for travel before last week’s Supreme Court decision lifting an injunction against Trump’s executive order banning travel from six mostly Muslim countries plagued by terror.

EUROPEANS VOW MORE HELP TO STEM LIBYA-ITALY MIGRANT FLOW

But the report leaves little doubt that the perpetrators of future terror attacks are already here, including some who may not yet be radicalized. It recommends a long-term focus be placed on migrants “embracing an American creed, learning English and gaining an education” which will in turn help them to develop and sustain “an American identity and sense of belonging.”

The report also supported the widely reported claim that refugees coming to the U.S undergo more vetting than any other immigrants coming to the country under other types of programs and visa categories. The vetting process for refugees typically takes 18 to 24 months from the time of the initial referral by the U.N. refugee agency, but “in the waning months of the Obama administration the U.S. reduced the time to as little as three months for Syrians by surging resources to the region.”

It also mandated that a “foolproof vetting system” is impossible, with obvious limitations, such as lack of identification or forged documents especially when fleeing war.

“To be as cost-effective as possible – which saves the most lives – the U.S. should focus the majority of its refugee efforts on helping front-line states care for the refugees they shelter,” the report states.

Specifically, the report suggests that the U.S. can do more to urge Middle Eastern countries – most notably the oil-wealthy Gulf States – to resettle Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

“Many Syrian and Iraqi refugees share similar cultural and religious values with the people of the Gulf States, which have the financial capacity for resettlement,” the report found. “Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have donated hundreds of millions of dollars each for relief efforts, but the U.S. should urge the Gulf States to increase their aid for their Arab Muslim neighbors by resettling Syrians with all the rights and protections due to refugees.”

As it stands, the Gulf States are not signatories to the U.N. Refugee Protocol and thus do not offer refugee status. They will admit some primarily as migrant workers or to reunify families.

Fraud is also a cause for concern, according to the report. It cites as an example the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya, which was exposed several years ago for developing an entire industry centered on “coaching applicants” and selling resettlement slots for as much as $10,000.

The report goes on to outline ways in which the U.S. could minimize fiscal costs and improve economic outcomes by establishing private resettlement programs on a trial basis rather than relying solely on government. But above all, the report emphasizes the need to ensure the program first and foremost puts America first.

It argues that refugee resettlement can indeed advance national interests by enabling the U.S. to “assert American leadership in foreign crisis,” providing “the U.S. with a way to respond positively to intractable crisis” and assisting allies and partners in crisis. But reviews by the Trump team to the program to achieve this objective are crucial.

***

Deeper dive from the U.S. State Department:

What is the Bureau’s role in the Department of State?

The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) is one of the State Department’s “functional,” as opposed to “geographic” bureaus. This indicates a Bureau that focuses on a particular issue wherever it arises around the world. As described in our mission statement, our focus is refugees, other migrants, and conflict victims. Our goal is to protect these people, who are often living in quite dangerous conditions.

The Bureau’s mission statement:

The mission of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) is to provide protection, ease suffering, and resolve the plight of persecuted and uprooted people around the world on behalf of the American people by providing life-sustaining assistance, working through multilateral systems to build global partnerships, promoting best practices in humanitarian response, and ensuring that humanitarian principles are thoroughly integrated into U.S. foreign and national security policy.

What does the Bureau do internationally?

The Bureau works with the international community to develop humane and what are termed “durable” solutions to their displacement. The three durable solutions, are:

  • Repatriation – going home when they are no longer at risk of persecution
  • Local Integration – settling permanently in the country to which they have fled
  • Resettlement – settling permanently in a third country

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), fewer than 1% of refugees worldwide are ever resettled. However, although resettlement often is the durable solution of “last resort,” it remains a vital tool for providing international protection and for meeting the special needs of individual refugees who are unable to return home.

Are internally displaced persons (IDPs) part of the Bureau’s portfolio?

Internally displaced persons are people who have been displaced from their homes but who have not crossed an internationally recognized border. The Bureau supports the work of UNHCR and ICRC when these organizations respond to the needs of internally displaced persons.

Numerous other organizations, such as UNICEF, the World Food Program, and others also provide assistance to IDPs that complement the activities of UNHCR and ICRC. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funds the work of these other international organizations as well as non-governmental organizations to respond to IDP needs as well.

Who does the work?

The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) has approximately 130 civil service and foreign service staff. On the foreign aid side, we are divided into geographic offices. Our program to resettle refugees in the United States is handled by our Admissions Office. We also have a policy office that monitors and evaluates the relief work conducted by the organizations we fund.

How does the Bureau deliver assistance to refugees?

The Bureau does not operate refugee camps, or otherwise give aid directly to refugees. Instead, in the interests of effectiveness and efficiency, we work with the United Nations (UN) and other international organizations, as well as with non-governmental organizations, that operate these programs. The Bureau manages the contributions to these organizations, and monitors the programs we fund: we make sure they are working properly and ascertain that they are in line with U.S. government policies.

For instance, take the refugee relief set-up on the border between Thailand and Burma. Many of the camps were built with assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Burmese refugees receive health services, in part, from a private American charity, International Medical Corps. In Bangkok, the refugee resettlement center, called an “overseas processing entity,” handles cases of Burmese referred for resettlement, and is managed by another U.S.-based group, the International Rescue Committee. All these groups receive funding from the Bureau.

PRM Year in Review 2016 Infographic
[text, larger graphic, and PDF versions]

Date: 12/21/2016 Description: Infographic of PRM Bureau Year in Review - 2016. Text version is at http://www.state.gov/j/prm/about/265944.htm. - State Dept Image

Silk Way Airlines Smuggles Weapons on Diplomatic Flights

Primer: Customers of these flights are often the U.S., Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Silk Way Airlines offered diplomatic flights to private companies and arms manufacturers from the US, Balkans, and Israel, as well as to the militaries of Saudi Arabia, UAE, the military forces of Germany and Denmark in Afghanistan and of Sweden in Iraq, and finally US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). The airline company transported thousand of tons of weapons for them.

*** Meet Purple Shovel:A multimillion-dollar deal with a minuscule arms dealer led to the death of a US citizen, delays in arming Syrian rebels, and the purchase of weapons from a pro-Russia dictatorship — all for a pile of defective 30-year-old weapons. Also meet Orbital ATK.

350 diplomatic flights carry weapons for terrorists

Azerbaijan’s Silk Way Airlines transports weapons with diplomatic clearance for Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo

In December of 2016 Dilyana Gaytandzhieva found and filmed 9 underground warehouses fullof heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin in Eastern Aleppo.

At least 350 diplomatic Silk Way Airlines (an Azerbaijani state-run company) flights transported weapons for war conflicts across the world over the last 3 years. The state aircrafts of Azerbaijan carried on-board tens of tons of heavy weapons and ammunition headed to terrorists under the cover of diplomatic flights.

Documents implicating Silk Way Airlines in arms supplies were sent to me by an anonymous twitter account – Anonymous Bulgaria.

%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%ba%d1%83%d0%bc%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%82

The leaked files include correspondence between the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Embassy of Azerbaijan to Bulgaria with attached documents for weapons deals and diplomatic clearance for overflight and/or landing in Bulgaria and many other European countries, USA, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, to name a few.

According to these documents, Silk Way Airlines offered diplomatic flights to private companies and arms manufacturers from the US, Balkans, and Israel, as well as to the militaries of Saudi Arabia, UAE, and US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and the military forces of Germany and Denmark in Afghanistan and of Sweden in Iraq. Diplomatic flights are exempt of checks, air bills, and taxes, meaning that Silk Way airplanes freely transported hundreds of tons of weapons to different locations around the world without regulation. They made technical landings with stays varying from a few hours to up to a day in intermediary locations without any logical reasons such as needing to refuel the planes.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Dangerous Goods Regulations, operators, transporting dangerous goods forbidden for transportation by air by civil aircrafts, must apply for exemption for transportation of dangerous goods by air.

According to the documents, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has sent instructions to its embassies in Bulgaria and many other European countries to request diplomatic clearance for Silk Way Airlines flights. The embassies sent diplomatic notes to the Foreign Ministry of the relevant country to request such exemption. The Foreign Ministry sent back a note signed by the local civil aviation authorities giving exemption for the transportation of dangerous goods.

The requests for diplomatic clearance included information about the type and quantity of the dangerous goods – heavy weapons and ammunition. However, the responsible authorities of many countries (Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Turkey, Germany, UK, Greece, etc.) have turned a blind eye and allowed diplomatic flights for the transport of tons of weapons, carried out by civil aircrafts for military needs. Under IATA regulations, the transport of military cargo by civil aircrafts is not allowed. To get around this legality, Silk Way Airlines applied for diplomatic exemption through local agencies.

 

U.S. sends $1 billion worth of weapons

Among the main customers of the “diplomatic flights for weapons” service provided by Silk Way Airlines are American companies, which supply weapons to the US army and US Special Operations Command. The common element in these cases is that they all supply non-US standard weapons; hence, the weapons are not used by the US forces.

According to the register of federal contracts, over the last 3 years American companies were awarded $1 billion contracts in total under a special US government program for non-US standard weapon supplies. All of them used Silk Way Airlines for the transport of weapons. In some cases when Silk Way was short of aircrafts due to a busy schedule, Azerbaijan Air Force aircrafts transported the military cargo, although the weapons never reached Azerbaijan.

%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%ba%d1%83%d0%bc%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%823-1The documents leaked from the Embassy include shocking examples of weapon transport. A case in point: on 12th May 2015 an aircraft of Azerbaijan Air Forces carried 7,9 tons of PG-7V and 10 tons of PG-9V to the supposed destination via the route Burgas (Bulgaria)-Incirlik (Turkey)-Burgas-Nasosny (Azerbaijan). The consignor was the American company Purple Shovel, and the consignee – the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan. According to the documents, however, the military cargo was offloaded at Incirlik military base and never reached the consignee. The weapons were sold to Purple Shovel by Alguns, Bulgaria, and manufactured by Bulgaria’s VMZ military plant.

%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%ba%d1%83%d0%bc%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%823-1 According to the federal contracts registry, in December of 2014 USSOCOM signed a $26.7 million contract with Purple Shovel. Bulgaria was indicated as the country of origin of the weapons.

On 6th June 2015, a 41-year old American national Francis Norvello, an employee of Purple Shovel, was killed in a blast when a rocket-propelled grenade malfunctioned at a military range near the village of Anevo in Bulgaria. Two other Americans and two Bulgarians were also injured. The US Embassy to Bulgaria then released a statement announcing that the U.S. government contractors were working on a U.S. military program to train and equip moderate rebels in Syria. Which resulted in the U.S. Ambassador in Sofia to be immediately withdrawn from her post. The very same weapons as those supplied by Purple Shovel were not used by moderate rebels in Syria. In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN).

Another U.S. contractor involved in the same program for non-US standard military supplies is Orbital ATK. This company received $250 million over just the past two years. Information as to what type of weapons and to whom those weapons were supplied is classified.

According to the documents, Orbital ATK transported weapons on 6 diplomatic Silk Way Airlines flights in July and August of 2015 flying the route Baku (Azerbaijan)-Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina)-Baku-Kabul (Afghanistan). The weapons were exported by IGMAN j.j. Konjic, (Bosnia and Herzegovina) commissioned by Orbital ATK. The consignee was the National Police of Afghanistan. Interestingly, all these diplomatic flights with weapons had technical landings and a 7 h 30 min stop at Baku before their final destination – Afghanistan.

Military aircrafts of Azerbaijan transported 282 tons of cargo (PG-7VL and other grenades) on 10 diplomatic flights in April and May 2017 to the destination Baku-Rijeka (Croatia)-Baku. The consignor was the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, and the consignee – Culmen International LLC, USA. This same company has been awarded two contracts ($47 million each) along with other contractors for non-US standard weapon supplies on 18 February 2016 and 19 April 2017 respectively. Culmen International LLC has also signed a $26.7 million contract for foreign weapons with the Department of Defense and a $3.9 million contract for newly manufactured non-US standard weapons.

Chemring Military Products is another main contractor in the program for non-US standard weapon supplies to the US army through diplomatic Silk Way Airlines flights. This military supplier has 4 contracts for $302.8 million in total. The weapons were purchased from local manufacturers in Serbia, Bulgaria, and Romania and according to documents transported to Iraq and Afghanistan via diplomatic flights.

One of those flights in particular, on 18 October 2016, carrying 15.5 tons of 122 mm rockets bought by Chemring in Belgrade, Serbia, was diverted from its destination – Kabul, and instead landed in Lahore, Pakistan. After a 2-hour stop, the aircraft took off to Afghanistan. The only possible explanation for the extension of the flight by a thousand kilometers is offloading in Pakistan, even though documents stated that the cargo was destined for Afghanistan.

%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%ba%d1%83%d0%bc%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%825The largest non-US standard weapons supplier to the US army is Alliant Techsystems Operations-USA with contracts totalling $490.4 million. In December of 2016, this company transported tons of grenades (API 23×115 mm, HE 23×115 mm, GSH 23×115 mm) from Yugoimport, Serbia to the Afghani Defense Ministry on diplomatic flights to the destination Baku-Belgrade-Kabul.

 

Saudi Arabia – sponsor and arms distributor

Besides the USA, another country that has purchased huge quantities of Eastern-European weapons and exported them on Silk Way Airlines diplomatic flights is Saudi Arabia. In 2016 and 2017, there were 23 diplomatic flights carrying weapons from Bulgaria, Serbia and Azerbaijan to Jeddah and Riyadh. The consignees were VMZ military plant and Transmobile from Bulgaria, Yugoimport from Serbia, and CIHAZ from Azerbaijan.

The Kingdom does not buy those weapons for itself, as the Saudi army uses only western weapons and those weapons are not compatible with its military standard. Therefore, the weapons transported on diplomatic flights end up in the hands of the terrorist militants in Syria and Yemen that Saudi Arabia officially admits supporting.

The Arab Kingdom also distributes military cargo to South Africa – a region plagued by wars over the control of the wealth in gold and diamonds found in African countries.

On 28 April and 12 May this year, Silk Way carried out two diplomatic flights from Baku to Burgas-Jeddah-Brazzaville (Republic of Congo). The military cargo on-board of both flights was paid for by Saudi Arabia, according to the documents leaked from Azerbaijan’s Embassy to Bulgarian sources. The aircraft made a technical landing at Jeddah airport with a 12 h 30 min stop for the first flight and 14 h stop for the second one.

The aircraft was loaded with mortars and anti-tank grenades including SPG-9 and GP-25. These very same weapons were discovered by the Iraqi army a month ago in an Islamic State warehouse in Mosul. Islamic State jihadists are also seen using those heavy weapons in propaganda videos posted online by the terrorist group. Interestingly, the consignee on the transport documents, however, is the Republican Guards of Congo.

Coyote machine gun 12,7х108 mm appeared in videos and photos posted online by militant groups in Idlib and the province of Hama in Syria. The same type of weapon was transported on a diplomatic flight via Turkey and Saudi Arabia a few months earlier.
Coyote machine gun 12,7х108 mm appeared in videos and photos posted online by militant
groups in Idlib and the province of Hama in Syria. The same type of weapon was transported on
a diplomatic flight via Turkey and Saudi Arabia a few months earlier.

February and March of 2017, Saudi Arabia received 350 tons of weapons on Silk Way diplomatic flights flying to the route Baku-Belgrade-Prince Sultan-Baku. The cargo included 27 350 psc. 128-mm Plamen-a rockets and 10 000 pcs. 122 mm Grad rockets. The consignor was Tehnoremont Temerin, Serbia to order by Famеway Investment LTD, Cypruss.

On 5 March 2016, an Azerbaijan Air Force aircraft carried 1700 pcs. RPG-7 (consignor: Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan) and 2500 pcs. PG-7VM (consignor: Transmobilе Ltd., Bulgaria) for the Defense Ministry of Saudi Arabia. Diplomatic flights from Burgas Airport to Prince Sultan Airport on 18 and 28 February 2017 each carried a further 5080 psc. 40 mm PG-7V for RPG-7 and 24 978 psc. RGD-5. The weapons were exported by Transmobile, Bulgaria to the Ministry of Defense of Saudi Arabia. Such munitions and RPG-7 originating in Bulgaria can often be seen in videos filmed and posted by the Islamic State on their propaganda channels.

UAE is another Arab country that has purchased Eastern European weapons which are not compatible with its military standards and were apparently re-supplied to a third party. On three flights to Burgas-Abu Dhabi-Swaihan in March and April of 2017, Silk Way transported 10.8 tons of PG7VM HEAT for 40 mm RPG-7 on each flight with technical landing and a 2-hour stop in Abu Dhabi. The exporter is Samel-90, Bulgaria, the importer – Al Tuff International Company LLC. The latter company is involved with Orbital ATK LLC, which is the Middle East subsidiary of the American military company Orbital ATK. Although the ultimate consignee is the UAE army, the documents of the flight reveal that the sponsoring party is Saudi Arabia.

 

Cash Payments

%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%ba%d1%83%d0%bc%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%828On 26 February 2016, an Azerbaijan Air Force aircraft took off from Baku and landed in UAE, where it loaded two armored vehicles and one Lexus car. The request for diplomatic clearance indicated the payment as cash – US dollars. The aircraft landed in North Sudan and, the next day, in the Republic of Congo. The exporter was Safe Cage Armour Works FZ LLC, UАЕ and the receiving party was the Republican Guards of Congo. The sponsoring party, however, was Saudi Arabia.

 

Diplomatic Flights carry deadly white phosphorus

White Phosphorus is an incendiary weapon whose use is very controversial due to the deadly harms it can inflict. On 31 March 2015, Silk Way transported 26 tons of military cargo including white phosphorus from Serbia (exporter: Yugoimport) and 63 tons from Bulgaria (exporter: Arsenal). On 22 March, another 100 tons of white phosphorus were exported from Yugoimport, Belgrade to Kabul. No contract is attached to the documents of those flights.

On 2 May 2015, a Silk Way aircraft loaded 17 tons of ammunition, including white phosphorus, at Burgas airport. The exporter was Dunarit, Bulgaria. The aircraft made a technical landing and a 4-hour stop at Baku before reaching its final destination – Kabul. The consignee was the Afghani police. No contract is attached as proof.

 

Baku – international hub for weapons

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense was repeatedly the consignee of weapons which it actually did not receive. On 6 May 2015, an Azerbaijani military aircraft flew to Burgas (Bulgaria)-Incirlik (Turkey)-Burgas. It carried aviation equipment from Bulgaria to Turkey with the consigner: EMCO LTD, Sofia, and consignee – Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan. However, the cargo was offloaded in Turkey and never reached Azerbaijan.

Some of the weapons that Azerbaijan carries on diplomatic flights were used by its military in Nagorno-Karabakh against Armenia. In 2016, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of using white phosphorus. Armenia denied the allegations and in turn accused Azerbaijan of fabrication, as the only piece of evidence was based on a single unexploded grenade found by Azerbaijan’s soldiers. According to the documents from the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Sofia, white phosphorus munitions were carried on a diplomatic flight via Baku the previous year.

Baku plays the role of an international hub for weapons. Many of the flights make technical landings with stops of a few hours at Baku airport or other intermediary airports en-route to their final destinations. Moreover, these types of aircrafts flying to the same destinations do not typically make technical landings. Therefore, a landing for refueling is not actually required. Despite this, Silk Way aircrafts constantly made technical landings. A case in point: in December of 2015 Silk Way carried out 14 flights with 40 tons of weapons on each flight to the destination Ostrava (the Czech Republic)-Ovda (Israel)-Nososny (Azerbaijan). The exporter is not mentioned in the documents while the receiver is consistently the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan. Strangely, the aircraft diverted and landed at Ovda airport (a military base in Southern Israel), where it remained for 2 hours.

In 2017, there were 5 flights from Nish (Serbia) via Ovda (Israel) to Nasosny (Azerbaijan). Each flight carried 44 tons of cargo – SPG Howitzer, RM-70/85. The consignor is MSM Martin, Serbia, the consignee: Elbit Systems, Israel, and the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan. All aircrafts landed in Israel and stayed for 2 hours en-route to Azerbaijan.

The same Israeli company Elbit Systems on a flight from Barno (the Czech Republic) via Tel Aviv (Israel) to Bratislava (Slovakia) re-exported armored vehicles (TATRA T-815 VP31, TATRA T-815 VPR9). They were sent by Real Trade, Prague to Elbit Systems. The ultimate consignee, however, was the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan. The aircraft landed in Tel Aviv and then in Bratislava, where the cargo was imported by another company – MSM Martin, Slovakia. It is not clear why the plane flew from Europe to Asia and then back to Europe with the same cargo on-board. Ultimately, it did not reach its final destination – Azerbaijan. This type of aircraft, IL 76TD, can carry cargo of up to 50 tons. This one carried only 30 tons according to the documentation provided. Therefore, it could carry additional cargo of 20 tons. Since the flight was diplomatic, it was not subjected to inspection.

 

A military coup after a diplomatic flight to Burkina Faso

Some diplomatic flights carry weapons for different conflict zones crossing Europe, Asia and Africa. Such is the case with two Azerbaijan Air Forces flights to the destination Baku-Belgrade-Jeddah-Brazzaville-Burkina Faso on 30 August and 5 September 2015. The consignors were CIHAZ, Azerbaijan, and Yugoimport, Serbia. The consignee was the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Congo. The aircraft made two technical landings – in Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

The 41.2-ton cargo from Baku and Belgrade included: 7, 62 mm cartridges, 12 pcs. sniper rifles, 25 pcs. М12 “Black Spear” calibre 12,7х108 mm, 25 psc. RBG 40×46 mm/6M11, and 25 pcs. Coyote machine gun 12,7х108 mm with tripods. The same heavy machine gun appeared in videos and photos posted online by militant groups in Idlib and the province of Hama in Syria a few months later. The aircraft also carried: 1999 psc. M70B1 7,62х39 mm and 25 psc. М69А 82 мм. On 26 February 2016, a video featuring the same М69А 82 mm weapons was posted to Youtube by a militant group calling itself Division 13 and fighting north of Aleppo.

%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%ba%d1%83%d0%bc%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%8212Interestingly, the aircraft that carried the same type of weapons landed in Diyarbakir (Turkey), 235 km away from the border with Syria. Another type of weapon, RBG 40 mm/6M11, which was from the same flight and supposedly destined for Congo too, appeared in a video of the Islamic Brigade of Al Safwa in Northern Aleppo.

After Turkey, the aircraft landed in Saudi Arabia and remained there for a day. Afterwards it landed in Congo and Burkina Faso. A week later, there was an attempted military coup in Burkina Faso.

 

300 tons of RPG-s, machine guns and ammunition for the Kurds

In March of 2017, over 300 tons of weapons were allegedly sent to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Northern Syria. Six diplomatic flights transported 43 tons of grenades on each flight from VMZ Military Plant, Bulgaria, to the Defense Ministry of Iraq. There are no contracts applied, however. On 28 March, 82 tons of cargo (AKM 7,62×39 mm and AG-7) were sent from Otopeni (Romania) to Erbil (Iraqi Kurdistan). The consignor was Romtechnica S.A., the consignee – again the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad. No contracts are provided for this flight either.

On 16 March 2016, yet another Silk Way diplomatic flight carried 40 tons of military cargo from Slovenia to Erbil: the exporter is ELDON S.R.O., Slovakia, the importer – Wide City Ltd. Co, Erbil, the final consignee – the government of Kurdistan.

Wide City Ltd. Co has three offices – in Limassol (Cyprus), Sofia (Bulgaria) and Erbil. The office of the Bulgarian company Techno Defence Ltd is at the address in Sofia. On the website of the company, the owner of Techno Defense Ltd Hair Al Ahmed Saleh claims that he has an office in Erbil and that his company manufactures Zagros weapons in Azerbaijan (K15 zagros, 9×19 mm and automatic K16 zagros). These types of Zagros weapons appeared in propaganda footage posted by the military wing of the Kurdish PKK party, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey. The President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev is also an ethnical Kurd.

I reached out to all sides concerned involving my investigation. However, I have not received any comment.