July 04, 2007 (the date of publication in Russian)
Konstantin Cheremnykh
WHAT YE SOW, SO SHALL YE REAP
Why terror strikes London, again
THE SOBERING BLAZE OF "LIVE TORCHES"
The fact that issues of international security dominated at the meeting of George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in Kennebunkport, while human rights issues were essentially downplayed, was not surprising for the Western community at all.
If the event took place just a week earlier, both subjects would acquire equal importance, and Vladimir Putin would undergo a severe interrogation over the much hyped atrocities of Russian troops in Chechnya. Most probably, the Russian leader would be most caustically ostracized by British rather than by American journalists. Since early 1990s, London had displayed the most exceptional hospitality for "dissident" radical Islamic activists, providing them asylum from Kremlin's "oppression". Similar sympathies were addressed to disgraced Russian moneybags, especially those who complained of being persecuted by ominous intelligence services – allegedly for having exposed those very services of arranging explosions of living quarters in Moscow just "in order to facilitate Putin's overtake of power in Russia" in 1999-2000.
The activity of "defense of human rights", personified on Britain's top political level by noble figures like Lord Avebury, Lord Alistair McAlpine and Lady Caroline Cox, had been traditionally focused on Soviet and later Russian ethnic minorities. However, since the United States displayed its strategic weakness, "human rights policy" expressed itself in equally passionate criticism of Washington – over tortures of Guantanamo prisoners, and Moscow – over allegedly even severer brutalities in North Caucasus.
The sentiment of major British media during the war in Iraq reminded a Russian of the outward sympathies to "Islamic fighters", typical for Russian liberal TV channels during the first (1994-96) war in Chechnya. On June 21, the website of the renowned BBC inspired voluntary paparazzi to join a "fact-finding" research in Iraq, by informing staff writers on redeployments of British troops across the war-ridden territory. Only indignation of soldiers’ relatives, fearing that this information might get into wrong hands, ceased this extravagant initiative.
British human rights advocates were not at all impressed with the episode of June 24, when one of the eight Russian Moslems, earlier extradited from Guantanamo to Russia to be mercifully released in a short while, was killed at the attempt of arrest in Nalchik, North Caucasus, with a "Shahid's belt" around his waist and topographic maps of the whole area between the Black Sea and the Caspian in his handbag. This person, Ruslan Odizhev, was known as a key organizer of a terrorist upsurge in the same city in 2005. Escaping arrest at that time, he was seen days later at a human right conference in Oxford, blaming both US and Russian special services for "persecution of decent Moslem believers".
Neither was the same community impressed by the preparations for a large-scale terrorist action in Istanbul, revealed on June 25 by local law enforcement bodies – though at his time, radical Islamic fighters were targeting heads of states, including Vladimir Putin, on the occasion of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation conference.
London seemed to have forgotten about the incident of July 7, 2004, when the local police hardly managed to prevent a large-scale explosion at the Heathrow Airport, which could turn more casualties than the 1999 explosions in Moscow, Buinaksk and Volgodonsk.
Only on June 29, when the London police discovered two autos, loaded with explosives, in the very heart of the city, local militants for human rights felt uncomfortable. Some visitors of The Guardian's forum hurried to lay responsibility on Washington, which supposedly could be avenging the newly-selected Prime Minister Gordon Brown for his promise to pull out the British troops from Iraq. But on the next day, a jeep with two "live torches", praising Allah, dashed into the glass gateway of the Glasgow airport, and the local staff hardly managed to prevent a large-scale explosion. The time for simplistic interpretations and high-flown human rights demagogy was over.
WOE FROM EDUCATION?
On June 30, Saturday, British airports were as stuffed with police as Moscow railway stations in November 1999, and perplexed Londoners were similarly eager to inform security services about strange "persons in white clothes" entering some apartment house. The city was again struck with horror.
This feeling emanated not from the already surfaced name of Al Qaeda, perceived by many with a careless smile. The population, much disappointed with both foreign and domestic policies of 10 Downing Street, was rather overtaken with the perception of uncertainty and ruthlessness of an obscure indiscriminate threat, personified neither by a particular enemy nation nor a particular party with known headquarters and bank accounts – but seemingly emerging from anywhere.
This feeling of horror was enhanced with the fact that the detained suspects turned to be not illiterate mercenaries with war skills acquired in "hot spots" but persons with perfect European medical education, who were the last to be suspected of disloyalty to the nation which had provided harborage to their fathers.
The relatives of the suspects looked as amazed as the rest of the public. There was nothing in their family culture to inspire the youths for terrorist activities. The elder brother of one of the suspects, Mohammed Asha, was married to a Christian lady, originating from Ukraine – a country commonly described as an innocent victim of Kremlin's "totalitarian" rule. Another radical Moslem activist originated from India, one more was an Iraqi citizen. The international origin of the terrorist team could be interpreted in various ways. However, a number of indicative circumstances should not be neglected.
Firstly, the panic in London was preceded with a terrorist threat in the airport of Ibiza, Spain, at first attributed – traditionally – to ETA's secessionist underground. The fact that this threat appeared to be just one of the elements of a global-scale daunting terrorist campaign was not so indicative as the logic of terrorist choice: Ibiza is a "glamour" resort for well-to-do youth, internationally reputed as a hotbed of lechery.
Secondly, the new outbreak of Islamist terror in Britain was preceded with a strange lethal incident in the VIP quarter of Mayfair – the same place of London which was shocked in last November by the death of former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko from a proven radioactive intoxication. The June 26 victim, Egypt's citizen Ashraf Marwan, 62, fell out of a window on the fifth floor of a well-guarded house. The victim's reputation of a gun-runner was not so indicative as the fact that this person, who led a life of a hermit for years, had been recently exposed of cooperation with Mossad, and had just tried to deny it in court.
Experts emphasize that Marwan's death could "produce a strong echo" across the whole Middle East – the area where ex-PM Tony Blair had just been appointed as Special Envoy. Excessive cheers over this choice had followed exactly in Israeli media.
The echo of one more recent event – the ceremony where Queen Elisabeth II created Salman Rushdie – the author of a book, insulting and provoking Islamic faith – a Knight, was not acknowledged as serious. However, hundreds and thousands of the British crown's patrials are now likely to pay for this demonstration of feudal contempt towards a passionary religion. New indications at the origin of the presently rising terrorist wave only confirm this possibility.
On July 3, The Times' observer Sean O'Neill suggested that the series of terrorist acts in public places was prepared from inside of the British penitentiary system. Quite recently, the officials of the Bellmarsh jail managed to deport a convict named Dhiren Barrot to another institution. This person used to radicalize other prisoners – not only of Moslem faith – to such an extent that an official penitentiary document included the term of "indoctrination", sounding very unusual for a bureaucratic ear.
Dhiren Barrot, as well as one of the newly-detained terrorists, is a Hindu who once converted into Islam. He is known as the author of the so-called Gas Limos project, which suggested simultaneous explosion of several powerful bombs planted in the most prestigious hotels of London, as well as in places of interests serving as the city’s and the Kingdom’s historical symbols. According to the investigation, Barrot, under the alias of Essa al Hindi, is the author of a book, substantiating a global-scale insurrection of the :"Third World" against the Western civilization. In 2004, when Barrot was sentenced to thirty years of custody, he was described as a disciple of radical Islamic teacher Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, identified by The Times' author as "the architect of September 11, 2001".
Thus, even an actually lifelong sentence appears not to isolate a devoted preacher from his radical parish, while a higher European education is not a panacea from revolutionary views – even on the contrary, an instrument enabling to transform passion into thought, and thought into action. As the investigators emphasized three years ago, the members of Barrot's group were perfectly keen in PC technique, and changed their aliases, abodes, safehouses and phone numbers with an astounding agility, acting confidently, calmly, and professionally – typically for persons ready to victimize themselves with an utmost belief in their righteousness
ANTICIPATION OF REQUITAL
Mohammed Asha's desperate father guides media correspondents to the flat his son rented – "small, dusty, with a single bed". His despair is understandable: the family had invested its last savings into education of the young man who was displaying a real talent of a neurosurgeon.
Now, the investigation will need months to find out when exactly the young man from Jordan got fascinated with revolutionary ideas – yet before arriving in London, or already after being granted British citizenship. However, the very description of his place of residence illustrates the social abyss separating him from the residents of the Mayfair quarter.
This abyss is a substantive character not of the London scene alone but generally, for the whole state of affairs where a Hindu named Barrot finds common language with equally educated and equally indigent young specialists in the most humane of existing sciences, while another Hindu, Lakshmi Mittal, is wallowing in money in a company of VIPs of an equally multinational origin. This state of affairs, commonly known as globalization, has opened unprecedented possibilities for self-affirmation in luxury for the VIP community – especially for its utmost prosperous layer for which law and authority means nothing at all, and which presently reigns not only over the global financial system but over state institutions, including most glorious intelligence services.
The two sides of confrontation are radically different both in the grade of wealth and quality of manners. The leakage of information about Ashraf Marwan's cooperation with Mossad originated not from a bold fact-finding effort of some paparazzi but from the recent personal squabble between Tsvi Zamir, ex-director of Mossad, and Eli Zeira, ex-head of Israel's military intelligence. One general was once dismissed by the other – to his view, unlawfully – over the failure to foresee the surprise attack of Egyptian troops on the Yom Kippur day of 1973, while his opponent admitted that the Israeli side was informed in advance. In this way, the name of a high Egyptian official who unofficially warned Israel of a probable attack eventually came to the surface. Still, "agent Babylon", as Marwan was codenamed by Mossad, was very distant from the idealistic image created today for him in Israel. In London, he was more known as a close friend of Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi and the ill-reputed Lonrho president Tiny Rowland.
Marwan's death is now associated by some authors with the scandalous case of BAE, a major British weapons producer, exposed of longtime covert "arms-for-oil" deals with the Saudi Kingdom. In this case, the motives of lucre were prevailing as well: the scandal broke out when BAE initiated a hostile takeover of Armor, a top US producer of armored vehicles. Generous commission payments, destined for Prince Bandar, (now former) Saudi Ambassador in the United States, were shipped through a US bank, while another share from each of the deals, which safely bypassed OPEC restrictions, was reportedly spent for "war against communism". The traces of the dirty money are thus likely to surface in the Russian Caucasus, as well as in the investigations of partnership of fugitive Russian oligarchs with top "Wahhabite" figures in Chechnya etc. – barely due to excessive appetites of "investment wolves"; barely due to the pre-election atmosphere in the US, in which scandalous exposures traditionally hit some of the real top bosses.
Large-scale disclosures frequently result in large-scale forfeits, and thence to elimination of informed witnesses or partners who fail to fulfill obligations. The best way to accomplish such a task is to recruit an ideologically charged team with its own motivation for the act of vengeance. It is possible that something of this sort happened in September 2001, when a global-scale terrorist act was preceded with physical extermination of Ahmad Shah Massood, leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance.
The late Ashraf Marwan, an officer originating from an elite Egyptian family and the spouse of President Nasser's daughter, was also a close friend of Mohammad al Fayed. The son of this Arabic billionaire perished in a mysterious accident in Paris together with Princess Diana, whose lubricious photos annoyed believing Moslems as much as Salman Rushdie's verses.
The Times' commentator David Aaronovich sadly opines that the British society has not derived any lesson from Diana's death. The recent rock concert, commemorating Princess Diana and involving Prince William and Prince Harry, called up an illuminative figural sequence to the author: a the selection of actresses to the "Big Brother" show, starting with questions like "When did you lose virginity?" or "Have you ever posed naked?"; a girl of 19 kicked out of a new round with a placard "Race Fiend" around her neck; top star Paris Hilton, instructing her boyfriend to film her having sex, etc. The author concludes: "We are creating a culture in which everyone's private life is for public consumption".
"And we'll pay for this eventually", he warns.
Can anti-ballistic weaponry guarantee from this requital; does the site of their deployment matter? I guess Vladimir Putin's words, addressed to a top Russian corporation whose personnel was captured in Nigeria, were more relevant.
"You have to be socially responsible", Putin said. What he means is obviously an exceptionally hard task for the VIP community of the globalization era. Still, the grapes of wrath are too ripe in the Third World to neglect this advice.
Number of shows: 1270
ENG 
