Remembering the Cover-Up of TWA 800

Audio of radio interview with Jack Cashill, author of the book TWA800

TWA 800: Twenty Years and Counting [Video]

From NoisyRoom and AIM:

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media

TWA

 

Accuracy in Media (AIM) recently held a press conference highlighting Jack Cashill’s latest book, TWA 800: The Crash, the Cover-Up, and the Conspiracy. The July 7th press conference received virtually no news media coverage, a continuation of the complicit media’s role in covering up the truth behind this tragic plane crash in 1996.

Cashill has broken new ground in this outstanding, recently released book. He cites the role of Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general appointed in 1994 by then-President Bill Clinton, who was the author of “the wall” that former CIA Director George Tenet described in 2004 to the 9/11 commission. That “wall” kept the CIA and FBI from sharing information in the run-up to September 11. Cashill wrote that “a newly unearthed treasure trove of CIA documents proves beyond argument, under Gorelick’s watchful gaze the CIA and FBI worked hand in glove to subvert the TWA 800 investigation.”

I also recently wrote about the TWA 800 crash for the American Thinker, detailing how Accuracy in Media’s investigation helped to expose the government cover-up, and how an AIM documentary demonstrated that the plane could not have simply exploded. We long ago concluded that the plane had to have been brought down by a missile or missiles.

Cashill, an outstanding investigative journalist, credits AIM for opening doors for him that he “could not have opened” himself, and for freely sharing its research. He also argues that TWA Flight 800 did not crash due to mechanical error, but instead due to missiles launched by nearby naval assets. Cashill noted at the press conference that “the FBI finally admitted that there were three submarines and a cruiser in the immediate—[those are] FBI words—in the immediate vicinity of the crash site.”

Although the 20th anniversary of the TWA 800 plane crash is this weekend, July 17th, even the few media organizations that have reported on Cashill’s book have chosen to obscure some key facts and cast him as a conspiracy theorist.

“While Cashill rehashes old conspiracy theories—a US Navy ship, which was in fact in the area, conducted a wartime exercise gone awry, or a terrorist on the ground used a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile, or a small plane collided with the 747, or a terrorist smuggled a bomb on board—it’s telling that, 20 years later, these theories still find traction,” writes Maureen Callahan for The New York Post. Similarly, the UK Daily Mailreports that Cashill’s book “takes a look at some of the alternate theories” and relegates the terrorist and naval exercise theories to “conspiracy theorists” and calls these “claims … declared untrue by the FBI a little over a year after the crash.” But at least these two articles reported on the various theories and some of the supporting evidence.

“The phrase ‘conspiracy theorist’ today is the word that we used to use for reporter a generation ago,” said Cashill at the press conference. “But right now they can just dismiss me as a conspiracy theorist, a nut job, a loose cannon. And that affects also the respectable conservative media: Weekly Standard, National Review. They don’t want to talk about this.”

Cashill was joined by other interested parties including John Clarke, the attorney for the key legal case proving a government cover-up; Mike Wire, an eyewitness to the explosion whoseaccount was said to be the basis for the CIA-produced animation of the event; and former NTSB member Vernon Grose, who talked about how his mind was changed when presented at an AIM press conference with evidence that the government had withheld from the public. Here are some of our findings, in the words of each of the speakers. [We broke the press conference up into four video segments.]

Roger Aronoff:

“So when I arrived at Accuracy in Media in 1997, we were just starting to get into this story. And what happened is there were two people who came to us wanting to investigate this story, and wanted AIM’s help. And [they] believed that AIM is the group that would do it, that was willing to buck the media and the government. And if the evidence was there, that’s what drove us—always has, and always will.”

“And so this case, when these two people came to us. One was Commander Bill Donaldson, former Navy pilot and crash investigator, and he believed that…what happened that night was actually the result of a terrorist missile.”

“The other was the Naval exercise gone wrong theory. There was an area, Whiskey 105, where they were doing Naval exercises, testing missiles and things. Jim Sanders, a retired cop and investigator, came forward believing that this was what happened that day.”

Jack Cashill:

“And the one bit of information they had that I had not seen and did not even know about, and I felt stupid for not knowing because I had presumed there was just a handful of eye witnesses and they all had conflicting reports, were the 750 FBI witness statements, 258 of which were from individuals who had seen an object ascend up off the horizon and attack the airplane.”

“According to the CIA, within two weeks of the disaster FBI agents had interviewed 144 ‘excellent’ eye witnesses—FBI word—to a likely missile strike and found the evidence for such a strike ‘overwhelming,’ FBI word. The CIA analyst then boasted of discouraging the FBI from releasing its missile report.”

“Of the 258 eyewitnesses do you know how many The New York Times interviewed? Zero. None.”

John Clarke:

“Now, if the [TWA] Flight 800 was taken down by missile fire, it wouldn’t be one or two stray pieces of evidence, it would be all the evidence tells us that. And that’s exactly what all the evidence tells us.”

“But I think that the most shocking, the most probative evidence in the case is the CIA zoom climb animation. I mean, they put [this on] national television and told the families that really, essentially, the front third of the aircraft was blown out, was blown off—and, as Jack said, the rear two thirds of the aircraft, a weight and balance of two thirds of the aircraft, shot up the better part of a mile. I mean, it is absolutely ridiculous. It is just absurd. It’s called the zoom climb cartoon, the CIA cartoon.”

“I spoke with all of those [six] witnesses, and not one reporter called one of the witnesses. It’s just amazing.”

Mike Wire:

“But the firework went up from behind the roof line of a house and went out to sea. It wavered in its travel up and down, went out at like a forty-degree angle. And after a while it arced over, disappeared, and out of that [within] a couple seconds an explosion erupted which grew into a huge fireball. And a couple parts blew out of the fireball, but the main fuselage came out of the fireball. It was on fire in the front of the fuselage and it left like a tube of fire going from the fireball as the plane descended behind house number two, which I couldn’t see it hit the water but it went down behind the house.”

“It’s time for people to come out and say what they saw, and for other people to confess what they’ve done.”

Vernon Grose:

“So, I was predisposed, I would say, to the idea that there could have been a wiring arc tracking into the tank, the center wing tank on TWA 800.”

“…at that symposium by Accuracy in Media they had photographs…clearly that the left side of the fuselage had imploded. Now, aircraft do not implode—they explode. … At that moment, after two years of many interviews, I changed my mind, and I knew that it had to be a missile.”


 

Make Obama Zip the Body Bags of the Dead Officers

Update: CBS reports the dead shooter in Baton Rouge is from Kansas City, former Marine, black male and well…today is/was his birthday.

Sadly, we wake on Sunday morning to the news on Baton Rouge of an ambush, 3 dead police officers (video) and 4 in the hospital. Not to be missed, another officer was ambushed in his squad car in Minneapolis and further there was a hostage situation at Burger King in Baltimore.

This is Barack Obama’s war on law enforcement across the country. Here we are working diligently trying to ‘Defend our Defenders’ and not being able to claim victory to save law enforcement.

 

#BlackLivesMatter activist: We need a military coup if Trump wins POTUS

 

Image via LinkdinPhoto from LinkedIn

“If Donald Trump becomes President, you are fooling yourself if you think we’re far from having a coup our own selves,” King tweeted. “I’m dead serious.”

 

Screen Shot 2016-07-16 at 8.05.08 PMMore here from RedAlertPolitics

End of Watch, Officer Down Memorial Page

Ladies and gentlemen, the terror attack on law enforcement in Baton Rouge was pre-meditated. Why?

NBC News: Deceased suspect was wearing black fatigues, law enforcement still trying to determine if he was wearing body armor. Other calls into 911 from a gas station reported shooting and the man was dressed as a ninja.

 

So, when it comes to Black Lives Matter and the New Black Panthers, the threat does not end there, nor does it end in Baton Rouge.

 

So, when the FBI sends out bulletins to law enforcement across the country to beware….what do we have? ANARCHY in the streets.

And how is the White House responding?
How about a timeline?

Some had urged the governor to tighten gun rules at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland after three police officers were killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Five police officers were killed a week earlier in Dallas, Texas.

The law in Ohio is that people can openly carry a gun if they have a permit.

Thousands of police officers will be providing security for the Republican National Convention this week.

 Governor's Office Statement

BBC Breaking News

@BBCBreaking

President Obama calls the shooting of police officers in Baton Rouge the “work of cowards”

on : “I want to be clear: there is no justification for violence against law enforcement. None”.

Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden

Mediaite: In addition to the three officers killed, several others were wounded. Reuters news agency reports that one is in a critical condition while another is in a fair condition at Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. A third officer is being treated at Baton Rouge General Hospital. His injuries are not said to be life-threatening. Go here for more from the BBC.  

The head of a Cleveland police union reacted to the shooting of multiple officers in Baton Rouge by going off on President Obama and a media culture that helps boost anti-cop narratives.

Detective Steve Loomis said that the shootings of police officers, from Dallas to now, started with what he deemed as a completely false narrative concerning the death of Alton Sterling.

He said that Obama has “validated the false narrative and the nonsense that Black Lives Matter and the media are pressing out there,” and he said the president has “blood on his hands” that he won’t be able to wash off.

Deadliest attacks on police in the last 100 years

USAToday: Amid a month of racial conflict and gun violence, at least three police officers were killed in Baton Rouge Sunday, adding to the tally of law enforcement officials slain in the line of duty in 2016.

Before Sunday’s shooting, 60 line-of-duty deaths had occurred in the USA this year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. 28 of the fatalities were firearm related, a 56% increase from firearm-related fatalities at this point in 2015.

Just ten days before Baton Rouge, five Dallas police officers were killed in what was the greatest loss of life for law enforcers since 9/11.

Although rare, these attacks are not the first time police officers have been targeted. Here is a look at some of the deadliest attacks on  law enforcement officers in the last 100 years:

July 17, 2016

At least three police officers were killed and two more injured in Baton Rouge on Sunday. The shootings came just weeks after the killing of Alton Sterling, 37, a black man from Baton Rouge whose death was shared with the nation after multiple videos captured two police officers holding Sterling down as they shot him.

July 7, 2016

A sniper opened fire on Dallas police during what had been a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in the wake of the shootings of Sterling and Philando Castile by police. Five officers were killed, seven more injured and two civilians wounded.

November 29, 2009

Four police officers in Lakewood, Wash., were killed sitting in a coffee shop after a gunman ambushed them. The suspect, who was killed by police a few days after the shooting, had been found guilty of multiple felonies years before the massacre and was released from prison after his sentence was reduced.

March 21, 2009

In two separate incidents, a gunman killed four Oakland police officers in the same day. After killing two motorcycle officers, the gunman opened fire and killed two SWAT officers who were responding to an anonymous tip about the shooter’s location just blocks from the original incident. One other officer was injured, but killed the gunman.

September 11, 2001

Seventy-two officers were killed responding to the worst terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, marking the deadliest day for law enforcement in U.S. history. Officers from various law enforcement agencies died in New York City at the scene of the World Trade Center, while one officer died in the crash of United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. Years after the attacks, countless first responders have died from illness related to toxins they were exposed to at the scene.

April 19, 1995

Eight federal law enforcement officers were among 168 people killed in a terrorist attack when a truck bomb was detonated outside a federal building in Oklahoma City.

February 28, 1993

Four officers from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were killed at the Branch Davidson compound in Waco, Texas, after trying to execute a search warrant. The compound was occupied by a cult that eventually committed a murder-mass suicide, leaving 80 dead.

December 31, 1972 to January 7, 1973

A sniper who was a member of the Black Panthers shot and killed five officers over the course of eight days. The shootings took place at different locations, the final one a hotel where the gunman died in a shootout on the roof of a hotel with police using a Marine helicopter.

April 6, 1970

After a gun battle with two heavily armed suspects, four California Highway Patrol officers were left dead near a service station. Two of the officers were killed in the initial gun fight while two others providing backup were killed shortly after.

October 30, 1950

In Puerto Rico, eight officers were killed in a political revolt led by the Nationalist Party, which sought independence from the U.S. The group called for attacks on all police stations and military bases on the island, widespread arrests the day before reduced the number of insurgents involved in the attack.

January 2, 1932

Attempting to arrest two people wanted for murder, six Missouri police officers were killed in a shootout at the suspects’ family farm. The officers were fired upon initially, and some attempted to enter the house but were killed in the shootout.

November 24, 1917

After a bomb went off in a Milwaukee police station, nine officers were killed in what is still the second deadliest day for law enforcement officials in the U.S. The bomb came in a suspicious package that had been discovered in a church nearby. A boy brought the package to the police, and as officers inspected it, the explosion occurred.

 

House Intel Cmte has Declassified/Released the 28 Pages

The 28 Pages Omitted from the 9/Commission Report are officially declassified and have been release by the House Intelligence Committee. They are here in full text with redactions.

Saudi Arabia’s leaders have long supported the release of the section, commonly known as the 28 pages. They insist their government played no role in the 9/11 attacks.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, were Saudi nationals.

28 pages

Clintons, Panama Papers and this Iranian/Iran Contra

Farhad Azima, Wins Ellis Island Medal of Honor

Farhad Azima, chairman of Aviation Leasing Group, was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor on May 9, 1998. Born in Iran, Azima is of Azerbaijani descent and currently lives in the United States.

Each year, the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations (NECO) gives Ellis Island awards to ethnic Americans from all backgrounds who have made valuable professional and patriotic contributions.

Since 1981, Mr. Azima has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aviation Leasing Group of Companies (ALG). ALG is directly involved in airline operations and technical support of the aviation industry. The Group currently owns, operates, and/or manages over 50 aircraft, many of which are operated by ALG’s associated company Buffalo Airways.

fazimaFarhad Azima is Chairman of Buffalo Airways which, in addition to its airline operations, conducts a sophisticated training program which includes training for the FAA, a number of other airlines, and training for the U.S. Navy E6 program, a program which is also under consideration by the U.S. Air Force.

The Company specializes in creating turnkey airlines and provides services to clients in South America, Africa, St. Lucia, a number of USSR Republics, the U.S. and Canada. Services include aircraft leasing, procurement, financing, management, training, operations and technical support, and automation. More here.

*****

Related reading: The Clinton Global Initiative 2007 List of Members

Meet The Iranian-Born, Major Clinton Donor Caught Up In The Panama Papers Scandal

DailyCaller: The Panama Papers investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) shows a prominent Clinton donor worked with the law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Farhad Azima, who ended up in the spotlight during the Iran-Contra affair during former President Ronald Reagan’s years in office, reinvented himself after the scandal as a politically pragmatic bipartisan donor. Azima went to the White House during Bill Clinton’s presidency 10 times, “between October 1995 and December 1996, including private afternoon coffees with the president,” according to ICIJ.

Then, when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was mounting her Senate campaign, Azima “in December 1999, hosted her and 40 guests for a private dinner that raised $2,500 a head.”

Azima’s generosity towards the former president and former secretary of state continued beyond the White House years, and The New York Times reported that Azima “pledged $1 million to the [William J. Clinton Presidential] library.”

The Iranian-born Azima made his living as an aviation executive. It is his work that gave him access to a Boeing 707 cargo jet, which he allegedly lent to the CIA to send weapons to Nicaraguan Contras — though Azima denies this.

The Clinton donor told ICIJ, “I’ve had nothing to do with Iran-Contra.”

“[I was] investigated by every known agency in the U.S. and they decided there was absolutely nothing there,” Azima told ICIJ. In a final remark, he said the whole investigation into his Iran-Contra involvement, “was a wild goose chase. The law enforcement and regulators fell for it.”

The Iran-Contra affair did not stop Azima from making quite the fortune, which in part has gone to the Clinton Foundation. According to a list of donors released by former President Clinton himself in December 2008, Azima gave a donation “from $50,001 and $100,000.”

Apparently the controversial donor’s money is so irresistible that even in 1997, while still dealing with the damage to his reputation from Iran-Contra, Azima gave $143,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which the DNC at first turned down but then ultimately accepted, according to The New York Times.

Related reading: The World Affairs Council of America, Oman and Iran and Beyond

FEC records show that Azima gave Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign $2,300 in November 2007. Once President Barack Obama became the Democratic nominee, Azima gave Obama’s Victory Fund a total of $30,800 in October 2008.

Azima also has ties to known Iran sanction evader Iranian national Houshang Hosseinpour, ICIJ reports. Back in 2011, the Clinton donor was involved in a joint venture with Hosseinpour to buy a hotel in Georgia, according to ICIJ.

At the time of Azima and Hosseinpour’s collaboration, former Secretary Clinton was still at the Department of State attempting to enforce sanctions against Iran. The actions of Hosseinpour were publicly admonished by the Department of Treasury in 2014 when they referred to him by name as trying to get around sanctions.

*****

Yes of course there is more.

Following the release of the Panama Papers, we learned that a company named FlyGeorgia was being used as a conduit to circumvent economic sanctions against Iran. An Iranian national named Hosshang (or Houshang) Hosseinpour has been targeted by the U.S. Treasury Department as part of a broader effort to enforce the sanctions. Hosseinpour and two others set up a number of front companies, some based in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, to facilitate their plan. To quote from the Irish Times article cited above:

The files show that [Farhad] Azima and Hosseinpour appeared on corporate documents of a company that planned to buy a hotel in the nation of Georgia in 2011. That was the same year treasury officials asserted that Hosseinpour, who co-founded the private airline FlyGeorgia, and two others first began to send millions of dollars into Iran, which led to sanctions being taken against him three years later.

Farhad Azima is one of the infamous middlemen involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, the Savings and Loan scandal, and other weapons trafficking incidents. Unnamed in any of the Panama Papers reporting on FlyGeorgia is George Cannady. But he is right there lurking in the shadows of Azima and Hosseinpour.

An entry in the Business Registry of Georgia shows that Cannady was a partner in Georgia Transport Management with Levan Tskhadadze. Tskhadadze had formerly been a manager at manager at Hosseinpour’s front company FlyGeorgia. Other people who list FlyGeorgia as an employer are Ursula Freseman, Lalit Dang, and Iranian former intelligence officer General Ali Asgari Reza. Freseman and Dang also list Heavylift International Airlines as a former employer. Heavylift is one of Farhad Azima’s many companies with which notorious weapons trafficker Viktor Bout was at one time affiliated. More here from Fareport

 

 

 

U.S. Puts Former Gitmo Detainee on Terror List, Istanbul Attack

What has he been doing since his release 10 years ago? Planning and recruiting for the Istanbul airport terror attack? And Obama released 3 detainees in 2 days and more to come. What about those ‘forever’ detainees like Khalid Sheik Mohammed? Hummmm

Ex-Gitmo detainee, Islamic State’s leader in Chechnya designated by State Department

The State Department announced today that two jihadists have been added to the US government’s list of designated terrorists.

One of the two, Ayrat Nasimovich Vakhitov, was once detained at Guantanamo and was recently arrested by Turkish authorities. According to Voice of America, Vakhitov is “among 30 people Turkish authorities say they have arrested in connection with” the terrorist attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport late last month. No terrorist organization has claimed responsibility for the assault on the airport, which left more than 40 people dead. But it is widely suspected to be the work of the Islamic State.

The second newly-designated terrorist is Aslan Avgazarovich Byutukaev, who leads the jihadists in Chechnya who are loyal to the Islamic State’s so-called Caucasus province.

Former Guantanamo Detainee

Screen Shot 2016-07-13 at 12.26.28 PM

Vakhitov (pictured on the right) was held at Guantanamo for less than two years, from June 2002 until February 2004. He was then transferred to Russia. The State Department’s designation page does not say that Vakhitov was once detained at the American facility in Cuba, but The Long War Journal has confirmed that he is the same individual.

The details of his story, as recounted in a leaked Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) threat assessment, are somewhat odd. Vakhitov was “arrested by the Taliban on suspicion of espionage, and incarcerated at the Sarpuza prison complex in Kandahar,” the leaked file reads. He was apparently transferred to Guantanamo because of “his possible knowledge of an American citizen killed” at that same prison “while he was there.”

JTF-GTMO ultimately concluded that Vakhitov was neither affiliated with al Qaeda, nor a Taliban leader. He was recommended for transfer. But JTF-GTMO also thought he would be remain imprisoned inside Russia.

“Because of the Russian government’s agreement to incarcerate this detainee upon his transfer, and provided that he remains incarcerated under the control of the Russian government, the detainee poses no future threat to the U.S. or its allies,” JTF-GTMO’s threat assessment reads.

The State Department says that Vakhitov “is associated with Jaysh al-Muhajirin Wal Ansar” (JMWA, or “the Army of the Emigrants and Helpers”). Part of the original JMWA organization joined the Islamic State, while the rest of the organization continued to operate independently before swearing allegiance to Al Nusrah Front in Sept. 2015. Al Nusrah is al Qaeda’s official branch in Syria and the Islamic State’s rival.

The State Department’s designation page does not mention Vakhitov’s reported arrest in Turkey, but does say he has “used the internet to recruit militants to travel to Syria.”

Islamic State leader in Chechnya

The State Department note Byutukaev was a “prominent leader” in the Islamic Caucasus Emirate (ICE). ICE is openly loyal to al Qaeda, but has suffered a string of defections to the Islamic State.

Russian security forces killed ICE’s top emir and his two successors in less than two years time, from late 2013 until mid-2015. The decapitation strikes likely helped the Islamic State win the loyalty of some of ICE’s most important remaining commanders, including Byutukaev.

Byutukaev, also known as Emir Khamzat, was a close confidant of Dokku Umarov and led ICE’s Riyad-us-Saliheen Martyr Brigade. But Umarov perished sometime in late 2013 or early 2014. His replacement, Aliaskhab Kebekov, more commonly known as Ali Abu Muhammad al Dagestani, was subsequently killed by Russian forces in April 2015.

Less than two months after Kebekov’s demise, Byutukaev officially broke with ICE, declaring himself to be one of Baghdadi’s men.

The pro-al Qaeda contingent in the Caucasus then suffered another blow when Abu Usman, Kebekov’s successor, was hunted down in August 2015. Both Kebekov and Abu Usman were vocal opponents of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s Islamic State, so much so that al Qaeda’s main propaganda arm continues to feature clips of their anti-Baghdadi lectures in its productions.

High value targeting, as it is commonly called, is an essential part of any government’s counterterrorism strategy. But it can lead to unintended consequences as well. In this instance, the deaths of ICE’s top leaders probably helped drive Byutukaev and his comrades into the Islamic State’s arms. The large contingent of fighters from the Caucasus region in the Islamic State’s ranks in Iraq and Syria most likely added to the pressure on the jihadists back home to flip as well.

The State Department notes that Byutukaev is “responsible for directing numerous deadly suicide bombing operations, including the January 2011 attack at the crowded international arrivals hall of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport.” The bombing killed at least 35 people and wounded more than 100 others.

Umarov, who was ICE’s emir at the time, quickly claimed credit for the airport attack in a video released online.

Doku-Riyah-video-Kavkaz

Umarov also appeared in another video alongside Byutukaev (seen on the left in the photo included here) and a suicide bomber identified only as “Saifullah.” Umarov said that he had visited the Riyad-us-Saliheen Martyr Brigade’s base before sending Saifullah on a “special operation,” meaning the bombing at Domodedovo.

At the end of video, both Umarov and Byutukaev were shown embracing Saifullah. [See LWJ report, Caucasus Emirate leader threatens Russia with ‘a year of blood and tears.’]

“Since becoming an ISIL [Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] leader in June 2015,” State reports, “Byutukaev has planned attacks on behalf of the group.” One of these operations took place in November 2015, when “Russian Special Forces discovered a large bomb hidden on the side of the road in Kantyshevo, Ingushetiya, Russia.”

The Caucasus “province” was announced in June 2015, after Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al Adnani publicly accepted the oaths of allegiance sworn by jihadists throughout the region. The Caucasus branch is reportedly led by Rustam Asilderov, a former ICE leader who defected to the Islamic State in late 2014. Asilderov’s defection set off a firestorm of controversy and bickering among the Caucasus jihadists.

In Sept. 2015, Foggy Bottom designated the Islamic State’s Caucasus “province” as a terrorist organization and also identified other ICE defectors who had joined its cause.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for The Long War Journal.

*****

Aiat Nasimovich Vahitov, also spelled Ayrat Wakhitov or Vahidov (Tatar Cyrillic: Айрат Вахитов, Latin: Ayrat Waxitov) is an ethnic Tatar citizen of Russia who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp, in Cuba.[1] He was repatriated with six other Russians in February 2004. Fluent in Arabic, Pashto, Persian, Urdu and Russian, he also spoke basic English.[2]

On May 15, 2006 the Department of Defense released its first full official list of all the Guantanamo detainees who were held in military custody.[3] Airat Vakhitov’s name is not on that list. The list includes an individual named Aiat Nasimovich Vahitov.who was born on March 27, 1977, on Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatarstan, Russia.

Russian authorities released the detainees after investigations into whether they had broken any Russian laws.

Vakhitov spoke publicly on June 28, 2005 about torture in Guantanamo when he announced he was planning to sue the United States for his mistreatment.[4] He was invited, by Amnesty International, to speak about Guantanamo torture, in London, on November 2, 2002.

Geydar Dzhemal, chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia, reported that he was hosting Vakhitov, and another former Guantanamo detainee, Rustam Akhmyarov, following threats by security officials.[5] According to Dzhemal the security officials had visited Vakhitov, and warned him that he should only talk about torture in Guantanamo Bay, not Russian torture. Dzhemal reported that security officials subsequently seized Vakhitov and Akhmyarov from his apartment on August 29, 2005. He called their seizure a kidnapping because they refused to show their identification. He predicted that the pair would be arrested on trumped up charges, to curtail their human rights activities.

The pair were released from detention on September 2, 2005  More details here.