Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The Breivik Portfolio, Part Two: The Chechen Connection

Chechnya: rubble

As I mentioned in my first post in this series, Anders Behring Breivik reportedly received training at secret a paramilitary camp in Belarus:

Breivik ‘Underwent Paramilitary Training in Belarus’

Norway’s twin terror suspect Anders Behring Breivik trained at a secret paramilitary field camp in Belarus earlier this year, a Belarusian opposition politician said on Thursday, citing security sources. “Breivik visited Belarus several times. This spring, as part of his preparations for his twin attacks, he visited Minsk, where he underwent training at a secret paramilitary field camp,” Mikhail Reshetnikov, the head of the opposition Belarusian Party of Patriots, told the Gazeta.ru online newspaper.

He cited sources within Belarus’s “security organs.”

Earlier this month “Niccolo Machiavelli” dug into Mr. Breivik’s Belarus activities in greater detail for a post at Big Peace. The killer’s eastern activities reveal cloak-and-dagger underworld connections that lead through Belarus into Russia, Chechnya, and beyond.

A Polish site reports that the paramilitary camp — which Mr. Breivik may have visited three times — was organized by a retired KGB colonel named Valery Lunev. The Real Russia Blog has more:

Norwegian Terrorist Anders Breivik Trained in Belarus Militant Camps
Yuri Mamchur


While U.S. news feature information that Breivik purchased ammo from a U.S. supplier, Eastern European feeds are full of details of Breivik’s multiple trips to Belarus, changes in his behavior and wealth, and the training he underwent in Belarusian militant camps. In fact, Belarus’ tight government regime and active intelligence have served a great purpose this time around. Even though Breivik didn’t do anything suspicious at the time, Belarusian KGB kept precise records on Breivik, who was called “Viking” in the intelligence reports.

First time, Anders Breivik visited Minsk on March 4, 2005. He flew Vienna-Minsk-Vienna roundtrip, departing from Belarus on March 11, 2005. At the border, Breivik told customs officials that he came to visit the Vikings’ graves. Centuries ago, Vikings went through the region multiple times, and there are indeed multiple ancient graves visited by the Vikings’ ancestors. Thus, the first visit didn’t trigger any suspicion. It is still unknown whether Breivik visited the graves, but he did investigate Belarus’ governance, political structure, and the results of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The tour guides, who chaperoned Breivik in 2005, remember that he was afraid of poisoning with radioactive food products - a normal, they say, tourist behavior for a Western tourist. Now, that the stuff hit the fan, Belarusian KGB looked closer into what Breivik was really doing in their country.

It appears that the Norwegian terrorist underwent the militant-terrorist training under the guidance of 51-year-old Valery Lunev, a former colonel of Belarusian special forces, who now lives in Netherlands but regularly visits Belarus. According to Mikhail Reshetnikov, the Head of the Party of Belarus Patriots who is familiar with the intelligence records, “Breivik visited Belarus three times. Last Spring, while actively preparing for the terrorist attacks, he entered Poland with his own passport, and then travelled to Minsk under a passport of another European country. He recently got a Belarusian girlfriend and obtained access to significant amounts of money.”…

The fact that Mr. Breivik was monitored by Belarusian intelligence and associated with a retired KGB colonel means that he was well-known to the shadowy international spy networks long before the events of July 22, 2011. If the Belarusian security services are even minimally competent — which, since they inherited the KGB apparatus, seems likely — then we may assume that Mr. Breivik’s Belarusian “girlfriend” was in fact an agent of the state, tasked with monitoring his movements and activities when he was east of Talinn. Such would have been the practice of the KGB, which supplied “girlfriends” for as many Western businessmen and diplomats as possible.

But Anders Breivik’s connections in the former Soviet Union extended much farther afield than Minsk. Big Peace tracks the links between Mr. Breivik and an organization called the “Slavic Union”, as briefly mentioned by a Chechen website:
Russian authorities in Oslo… previously warned the Norwegian state security police PST that Vyacheslav Datsik and his followers from the Slavic Union were preparing a terrorist attack (it now seems that the Russians did it on purpose to divert police attention from Breivik — KC).

So who is Vyacheslav Datsik? The Chechen propaganda mill is not the only source of information about him. According to Norway’s TV2, as translated by a Norwegian English-language news service:
Broadcaster TV2 has reported that it has emerged that Breivik had met Russian neo-Nazi Vjatjeslav Datsik in Oslo, who was previously rejected when he attempted to apply for asylum in Norway after running away from a Russian psychiatric institute. Datsik was jailed in Norway and eventually deported for various offences. Breivik has reportedly had close links with Datsik’s organization, Slavic Union, who were found to possess knives, guns and firebombs when police raided an Oslo tattoo enterprise operated by the group. Breivik is believed to have bought much of his equipment from Russia.

The story becomes even more peculiar as we dig into a report from last year that Datsik claimed to have been sent to Norway by the Russian secret service to kill a Chechen separatist leader:

Vjateslav Datsik, a Russian neo-Nazi arrested in Oslo after fleeing a psychiatric ward in St Petersburg, was sentenced to eight months in prison on Thursday for violating weapons laws. He was heavily armed when he tried to seek asylum in Norway earlier this year.

Datsik, age 29, had declared himself guilty on all counts. He has earlier claimed that he wants to stay in Norway as long as possible, and equated the prison where he’s being held to “a luxury hotel.”

Also known as “Red Tarzan,” Datsik has said he rowed over the Baltic Sea after running away from a Russian psychiatric hospital where he claimed to have been tortured. He also has told reporters and the court that he had been sent to Norway by federal agents in Russia who wanted him to kill Chechyan separatist leader Akhmed Zakajev. [emphasis added]

“Wait a minute, Baron!” you say. “This Datsik fellow sounds like a common or garden lunatic. Maybe the Russians had him in the nuthouse for a good reason.”

And maybe they did. But the Russian and Chechen connections don’t end there, and all the threads seem to intertwine with Islamic radicals and terrorists. Once again, a report from a Chechen source:

Akhmed Zakayev [the target of the alleged assassination attempt], right after the World Chechen Congress in Warsaw 2010, had to visit Norway. Since then, Russian agent was aiming on Akhmed Zakayev. According to ChechenCenter’s received sources, Russian agent named Viacheslav Valerievich Datsik, was sent to Norway to assassinate Mr. Zakayev three months ago.

Datsik received a gun from Russian FSB and was told to eliminate Chechen leader, the most diplomatic politician in Europe. With such information Datsik informed the Highest Court of Norway and also added that his friends forced him to give up to the local police and explain the situation.

As it is known for some authorities, Viacheslav Datsik is under arrest now and going through variety of court processes. The Highest Court of Norway is planning to jail Datsik for eight months. Datsik seems to be satisfied to spend eight months in prison and wants to get rid of Russian KGB. Datsik says that KGB (FSB) anonymously urged him of something bad.

Viacheslav Valerievich Datsik is a former kickboxer and winner of many martial championships including “ultimate fight”…

So, if we believe these stories, Mr. Datsik was sent to Norway by the FSB to kill a Chechen separatist. But he then changed his mind and turned himself in to the Norwegian authorities.

If this were where the trail ended, then we could wrap things up, and readers would depart disappointed. But there’s more.

Let’s take a closer look at the reported associations of Valery Lunev, the former KGB colonel under whose guidance Anders Breivik is said to have received paramilitary training in Belarus. Among other things, we read that Col. Lunev converted to Islam when he married a relative of the late Dzhokhar Dudayev, a former general in the Soviet Air Force and the first President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

He also has connections with the Gulf Emirates. He is an officer in a private intelligence company, Far West LLC, which is based in Dubai, according to a translated Russian report. The brother of one of his colleagues in Russian intelligence was reportedly assassinated in Dubai.

The intrigue gets even thicker. The largest shareholder in Far West is Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi Military intelligence, and a former ambassador to both Great Britain and the United States. Other prominent shareholders include a general from Ukrainian military intelligence and a former subsidiary of the U.S. company Halliburton. Ruslan Saidov, a retired major on the Soviet General staff and a Muslim Chechen, holds a 25% share.

According to the Russian report, Both Saidov and Lunev are associated with the Grey Wolves, the underground Turkish radical nationalist group which has connections with Chechen separatists.

The same report lists what it says are some of Far West’s customers:

  • The largest Chinese state oil company;
  • A consortium of families from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Pakistan;
  • Iranian high-tech export firms with connections to the speaker of the Iranian parliament; and
  • A group of Ukrainian coal mine magnates in alliance with German manufacturers of nuclear power equipment.

All of this is a murky stew, as intelligence matters usually are, especially where Russia is involved. It’s hard to see the underlying patterns.

But let’s recap a bit of what we’ve learned (assuming, of course, that any of this material is true, which we don’t really know):

  • Anders Behring Breivik allegedly engaged in paramilitary training under the auspices of a former KGB officer who is a convert to Islam and has connections to Chechen separatists.
  • Mr. Breivik is also said to have been in contact with a Russian connected with the Slavic Union, who was sent to Norway to assassinate a Chechen separatist leader.
  • Tracking these associations back, we find a private intelligence firm in the Persian Gulf which seems willing to do business with a wide variety of clients.

No coherent overall plan can be discerned from such a mishmash.

Pro-Chechen or anti-Chechen? Is there an Islamic connection? Who knows?

But one thing is for certain: given the cast of characters and the organizations involved, it strains credulity to think that Western intelligence services had never heard of Anders Behring Breivik before July 22, 2011.

To put it more strongly: It is inconceivable that the PST and the CIA had never run across the Oslo murderer’s name before he committed his crimes.

Given that American, British, and Norwegian intelligence services were active during the period when Mr. Breivik was hanging out with all those spooks and assassins, one of the agencies is certain to have run across him. If none of them did, they must be very incompetent indeed.

Big Peace wraps up the loose ends:

Investigators are also looking to Breivik’s finances (over $700,000 earned through his investments), possibly in Bermuda or other Caribbean tax havens, but those investigations seem to be in early stages.

[…]

With a Russian assassin (with whom Breivik reportedly met) allegedly in Oslo to kill a Chechen leader, and a large CIA presence also in Oslo attending demonstrations, photographing potential terrorists and cooperating with at least some branches of Norwegian law enforcement, surely it is worth investigating whether some hint of Breivik’s planning for the attack hadn’t been detected by one or the other of these intelligence services.

No matter what the intelligence services might have known back then, they are busily denying any such knowledge now.

For those whose credulity has been sufficiently strained by all this, the main remaining question is: Why?


Previously in the Breivik Portfolio:

2011 Aug 11 Part One: The American Connection

18 comments:

Jeffery Anderson said...

So was he a muzzie sympathizer?

Zenster said...

The intrigue gets even thicker. The largest shareholder in Far West is Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi Military intelligence, and a former ambassador to both Great Britain and the United States. [emphasis added]

This name should set off some alarms all by itself.

Prince Turki al-Faisal is no friend of the West. An excerpt from a 2003 Grauniad article explains why:

Saudi envoy in UK linked to 9/11

Legal papers in the case obtained by The Observer make it clear that the allegations are serious and lengthy. Many centre around Turki's role as head of the Saudi intelligence agency. He held the post for 25 years before being replaced in 2001 just before the attacks on New York.

Turki admits to meeting bin Laden four or five times in the 1980s, when the Saudi-born terrorist was being supported by the West in Afghanistan. Turki also admits meeting Taliban leader Mullah Omar in 1998. He says he was seeking to extradite bin Laden at the request of the United States.

However, the legal papers tell a different story. Based on sworn testimony from a Taliban intelligence chief called Mullah Kakshar, they allege that Turki had two meetings in 1998 with al-Qaeda. They say that Turki helped seal a deal whereby al-Qaeda would not attack Saudi targets. In return, Saudi Arabia would make no demands for extradition or the closure of bin Laden's network of training camps. Turki also promised financial assistance to Mullah Omar. A few weeks after the meetings, 400 new pick-up vehicles arrived in Kandahar, the papers say.

Kakshar's statement also says that Turki arranged for donations to be made directly to al-Qaeda and bin Laden by a group of wealthy Saudi businessmen. 'Mullah Kakshar's sworn statement implicates Prince Turki as the facilitator of these money transfers in support of the Taliban, al-Qaeda and international terrorism,' the papers said.

Turki's link to one of al-Qaeda's top money- launderers, Mohammed Zouaydi, who lived in Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2001, is also exposed. Zouaydi acted as the accountant for the Faisal branch of the Saudi royal family that includes Turki. Zouaydi, who is now in jail in Spain, is also accused of being al-Qaeda's top European financier. He distributed more than $1 million to al- Qaeda units, including the Hamburg cell of Mohammed Atta which plotted the World Trade Centre attack.

Finally the lawsuit alleges that Turki was 'instrumental' in setting up a meeting between bin Laden and senior Iraqi intelligence agent Faruq al-Hijazi in December 1998. At that meeting it is alleged that bin Laden agreed to avenge recent American bombings of Iraqi targets and in return Iraq offered him a safe haven and gave him blank Yemeni passports.
[emphasis added]

Turki al-Faisal also enjoyed a conspicuously brief tenure as Saudi ambassador to the United States from July 2005 until December 11, 2006. This is especially the case considering that his predecessor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, worked in the same post for 22 years. Evidently, even the bottom feeders in Foggy Bottom didn't have the stomach for this double dealer.

But one thing is for certain: given the cast of characters and the organizations involved, it strains credulity to think that Western intelligence services had never heard of Anders Behring Breivik before July 22, 2011.

Given the presence of Prince Turki al-Faisal in this multinational intelligence mish mash, red flags should have been flying all over the place.

Zenster said...

Also of extreme interest are some excerpts from a Gulf News article that is curiously no longer available online:

Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida network, whose operatives have used fraudulently obtained passports for international travel, has acquired stolen blank Saudi passports, the FBI said on Wednesday.

In its weekly intelligence bulletin to local law enforcement officials, the FBI said the unissued Saudi passports are authentic and have key security features that allow them to pass routine examination.

"Numerous Al Qaida terrorists have also carried Saudi passports issued in the Holy Capital, another term for the city of Makkah," the FBI said...

… "Until recently, passports from Saudi Arabia have also been vulnerable to misuse ... because they were easily acquired under false pretense and were relatively easy to forge," the FBI said.

"Nearly one-third of the Saudi passports confiscated from suspected terrorists and examined by U.S. authorities show signs of fraudulent issuance or alteration."

The FBI said new Saudi passports first issued in early 2002 incorporated features designed to hinder alteration. The blank passports Al Qaida acquired were from the new "E-series."
[emphasis added]

While Turki al Faisal's position as head of Saudi Military intelligence expired before the new E-series passports were distributed, it is quite possible that whatever network he may have originated or supported was still in place inside the Saudi intelligence organization during 2002.

Again, just one more red flag that should have snared the attention of intelligence operatives working this case.

As always, Baron, some splendid work teasing out the convoluted trail of breadcrumbs left in Breivik's wake.

Christendom Forever! said...

I wasn't able to read the entire article (really short on time right now), but what I did read was outstanding. Excellent work-up on the Breivik case.

Anonymous said...

How utterly ironic concerning Breivik and how unsurprising concerning intelligence agencies. It's par for the course on both counts.

Whiskey said...

It would not surprise me if Western agencies missed Breivik in Bealrus. It is a hostile place to them, and there are not very many Western intelligence people. Those that are tend to be concentrated upon places like Yemen, or Afghanistan, or the Horn of Africa assisting various drone strikes.

Bob Baer I think estimated there are less than 1,000 CIA intel officers capable of working informants in the field, the rest are desk workers unsuited for anything else.

mickeypavic said...

So the Sabian (Middle Eastern Masons) and Oriental lodge (non Anglo European Masons) relations are exposed....

Rudolph Hess interogation statement, "The National Socialists value the occult sciences highly and might even be, through Hitler, the puppets of a clandestine Directorate in the Orient."

Van Grungy said...

I take back my Guy Fawkes idea..
there is something bigger at work..

something 'global' in design..

I guess I have to really think about the implications.. (more and more see the root of the problem)

Lee Harvey Norway is just a cog.

http://weaselzippers.us/2011/08/16/obama-worried-about-lone-wolf-terrorist-attacks/

Norway was just the test to see a reaction.. a calibrating shock..

top down, bottom up, inside out..

Sconnie said...

ABB creates a fake persona to discredit it? 2 Birds w/ 1 Stone? Kill Socialists and discredit Nationalists?

CubuCoko said...

Reading through this, all the available evidence suggests anti-Russian involvement: Chechens, Belarus "opposition" (organized and funded by the US), Saudis... The ex-KGB officer lives in the West now, works with the Saudis, converted to Islam and married a Chechen. So, follow the money - who funds the Chechens, and busily makes up excuses for every single act of their terrorism? The truth points to itself.

Anonymous said...

You miss the real question, what training would he need? Aside from the car bomb, his attack was very simple. Get on the island and start shooting children and unarmed adults. Not alot of training is needed for that.

I think that even if he went to some wannabee "training" camp it really means nothing. His training did not amount to much vis-a-vis the attack.

Didn't he also claim that first-person shooter video games were good training?

I don't see these conspiracies amounting to much.

Unknown said...

Where is Part One??

Zenster said...

Federale: I think that even if he went to some wannabee "training" camp it really means nothing. His training did not amount to much vis-a-vis the attack.

Even if you are correct, it still does not diminish one of the Baron's central points. Namely, that numerous intelligence agencies should have connected some of the rather conspicuous dots. Maybe not directly to Breivik but the activity alone by some individuals (e.g., Turki al-Faisal), should have set off a few warning bells somewhere.

Much as with the Oklahoma City terror attack, there also remain questions as to who provided the bomb-making instruction for Breivik. As I have noted elsewhere (from some admittedly limited research), an ammonium nitrate and fuel oil slurry evidently does not have the percussive detonation characteristics needed to seriously compromise the structural members of a large building. There are specific additives required to enhance this particular property and they are, evidently, a distinct signature of al Qaeda truck bombs.

Paardestaart: Where is Part One??

Here, friend.

World traveller said...

The truth might be even more complex than that. There is an international underground organisation (anarchistic/communistic?) who's goal it is to topple all European governments. According to two female members (who said a little too much under the influence of alcohol) they co-operate with the "democracy" movements in the Middle East, i.e. Muslim Brotherhood, and they had meetings in Finland, Norway and Sweden days before Breiviks massacre. Next meeting were to be held in Scotland. Then the riots erupted in UK and the weird attack on the Estonian parlament (which is the neighbouring country to Finland) and the Libyan "democracy fighters" took over the Libyan embassy in Stockholm. All of this doesn't have to mean anything, it might all be coincidences. But there is that little nagging suspicion that Breivik isn't what he seems to be or that he might have been manipulated by this organisation to kill all those people. The only winners after all is the pro-immigration/islamist movements. Any criticism of islam or communism or immigration now and you will be compared with the massmurderer Breivik.
Just another conspiracy theory from me after by pure accident speaking to two drunk women in their early 40s. It was a very bizarre conversation to say the least.

Lawrence said...

Most interesting.

Now that the truth comes out that Breivik wasn't really a "Christian" terrorist, the media sees little value in reporting on the truth of his atrocities.

Zenster said...

Lawrence": Now that the truth comes out that Breivik wasn't really a "Christian" terrorist, the media sees little value in reporting on the truth of his atrocities.

Even stranger is that, in actuality, the "truth" hasn't come out. Most Christians I talk to are totally unaware about Breivik's lack of religiosity. Correct me if I am wrong but I, like most others here (I would guess), have not seen one single major media retraction or correction of the "right wing Christian fundamentalist" smear that Breivik was originally tarred with. (Don't speak up all at once, now.)

Nor has there been the least clarification regarding how many of the "children" on Ütoya weren't children at all. This entire tragedy has been carefully twisted into a celebratory exculpation of Islam for committing 99.9999% of this world's terrorism while totally ignoring all post facto evidence that has emerged, regardless of importance.

Needless to say (then why say it?), the overwhelming horror and dismay expressed almost unanimously throughout the Conservative anti-Islam blogsphere has been ignored, just as any condemnation originating from said quarter has been de-emphasized, if not smothered completely.

Baron, you are to be commended quite strongly for having kept some "legs" beneath this event so that the counterjihad is given the proper ammunition that should be taken home from this heinous crime.

It would be a gross oversimplification, not to mention an outright inappropriate assignation, to say that this article's expository reporting is in some way an atonement for how Gates of Vienna appeared on the event horizon of Breivik's own manifesto. Such an attribution would be as offensive as it is wrongheaded.

Perhaps strangest of all is that this vitally important and still evolving back-story will only see the light of day due to efforts such as your own. For that, all of us are in your debt and I, for one, thank you.

Truthiocity said...

Lemme get this streight. Breivik was trained by a guy who was working for the Saudi ex secret service minister, the same Saudi who admitted a connection to Al Quida?

Alarm bells do ring.

This story must be condensed and disseminated widely.

Truthiocity said...

My last comment is also about the input from Zenster.

This alarming Breivik Saudi connection should be disseminated.