03.02.2006
Russia is Ready for Dialogue With HAMAS
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Michel Elbaz, Sami Rosen, Pavel Simonov
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Russian version
January, 2006 will go down to history as a month which brought a large victory to the Islamic movement in the Middle East. The results of elections in Palestine will inevitably affect situation not only in the zone of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also in the whole region. Moreover, HAMAS' coming to power for certain will add enthusiasm to the similar organizations in various areas of the Muslim world. Therefore, this event directly infringes on interests of the leading world powers, both in the context of a Middle Eastern politics and globally.
According to the US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice: "The presence of HAMAS in the government of the Palestinian Authority is a problem for the Americans". The opinion of key members of the European Community, expressed in the interview to the French journalists, the Supreme Representative of Brussels on Foreign Policy and Security Javier Solana: "It is obviously unacceptable to legitimize terrorist organization only because it has won elections ". "Our ally is not HAMAS, but the president Mahmud Abbas," declared the press-secretary of the German chancellor Angela Merkel, as she refused at the beginning of this week, during her visit to Ramallah, to meet the leaders of the Islamic movement. President of France Jacques Chirac considers HAMAS' legitimization will become possible only after it abandons its major ideological postulates. And the Head of the Italian Government Silvio Berlusconi is convinced that victory of the Islamic movement in the elections is "a very, very, very bad outcome".
In its turn, the Russian Foreign Department, in the official communiqué, named the same outcome as "a major event on the way to the further democratization of the Palestinian society and creation of the institutions of the future state". Moreover, the representative of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs on the issue of the Middle Eastern settlement, Alexander Kalugin, declared after the elections that there is an opportunity of contacts between Moscow and HAMAS.
On January, 30 the meeting of "Quartet" of intermediaries on the Arab-Israeli conflict took place in London. Javier Solana and the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov and Condoleezza Rice participated in it. According to Lavrov, the purpose of a meeting was in "working out of a common position" concerning the results of elections to the Palestinian parliament. However, the divergences in this connection between Russia and the West are already obvious. At the press conference on January 31, Vladimir Putin stated: "Our position towards HAMAS differs from the American and West-European one".At the first sight the Russian approach to this issue seems strange. Moscow for decades persistently supported FATAH organization, which lost power as a result of January 25 elections. But the acquaintance with secret background of the issue allows to understand that present position of the Kremlin is not strange at all...
The Soviet Past
In the summer of 1968, Moscow, at Cairo's suggestion, came into contact with the FATAH movement led by Yasser Arafat. Soon after that he and his colleagues managed to take over the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Since then and actually up to Arafat's death in the autumn of 2004, the Kremlin recognized him and the structures headed by him as the only exponents of the Palestinian interests. In the same year when the Russians established connections with FATAH, a branch of the Egyptian movement of Muslim Brothers (Harakat al-
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| Ahmad Yassin |
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Ikhwan al-Muslimeen) in Gaza was headed by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. This organization began to conduct regular activity in Palestine since the middle of the Forties.
By the end of the Sixties, its Gaza branch experienced the hardest crisis, first of all owing to the persecutions by Nasser's regime against Islamic opposition. After the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the Gaza Strip and the Western bank of the Jordan River became the so-called "Palestinian territories" under the control of Tel Aviv. During the next two decades, Sheikh Yassin managed to spread the influence of Muslim Brothers, both in Gaza Strip, and on the Western bank of the Jordan River. He refused to participate in political activity relieving thus his organization of the Israeli reprisals. Sheikh Yassin paid greater attention to the religious propaganda and humanitarian activity. As a consequence, Muslim Brothers attained wide popularity among the Palestinian population, especially in the refugees' camps in Gaza Strip. With the beginning of the first Intifada, striving not to lose national support, Ahmad Yassin and his confidants came to a conclusion on necessity to participate in the resistance activities. As a result, in December 1987 on the basis of the Palestinian infrastructure of the Muslim Brothers, "Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamia" (Movement of Islamic Resistance) was created, which is widely known by its abbreviation HAMAS. The new organization kept the ideological principles of the Muslim Brothers only stressing the point of the sacred war for cleansing of all Palestine and creation here of the Islamic state. At the same time HAMAS kept close communications with the other branches of Muslim Brothers outside the Palestinian territories, first of all in Jordan and in Israel (Islamic movement of the Israeli Arabs).
For many years Moscow did not consider Islamic movement in the Gaza Strip and on the Western bank of Jordan, as serious political force. The situation began to vary only at the end of the Eighties in connection with the Intifada and formation of HAMAS. To tell the truth, at that time, the Soviet diplomacy, secret services and official propaganda was rather suspicious towards the supporters of Sheikh Yassin.
Watching the close relations of HAMAS with Saudi Arabia, Moscow perceived the Palestinian Islamic movement as a conductor of the interests of "conservative pro-Western monarchies of the Persian Gulf". Besides, the powerful KGB was perfectly informed of the role of the Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestinian Muslim Brothers in the organization of resistance to the Soviet armies' intervention to Afghanistan. In fact, Abdallah Azzam, who started his career as
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| Abdallah Azzam |
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the Muslim Brother on the Western bank of Jordan, was at that time the major leader of "the Afghani Arabs". Accordingly, representatives of the secret services of the Soviet Union ranked the Palestinian Islamists as "a hostile element". Moscow could not think of conducting any contacts with them at all. Its only partner in the Middle Eastern conflict was Yasser Arafat.
The Hidden Presence
At the beginning of the Eighties, against the background of an attempt of the Muslim Brothers to seize power in Syria, the KGB representatives suggested to begin recruitment of agents in the ranks of this organization with the purpose of gathering of "forestalling information" on its activity. The initiator of the idea, Viktor Budanov headed at that time the department of foreign counterespionage of the KGB. In February, 2000 he told in an interview to the Russian newspaper Segodnya, that the head of intelligence at that time "in a rather sharp form" rejected his offer. The refusal was based on the thesis "if we start to hire terrorists we can be accused of supporting terrorist organizations". Trying to recruit agents among the Muslim Brothers in the Middle East, the Soviet counterspies could not suspect that those are already conducting activity near to the headquarters of the KGB in Moscow.
As one of the former leaders of HAMAS and in Gaza Strip Imad al-Fallouji claims, already at
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Imad al-Fallouji |
the beginning of the Eighties the emissaries of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brothers conducted underground activity in the Soviet capital. Their main task was recruitment of new members among the Palestinian students studying in the Soviet Union. The Moscow "office" was controlled by the leaders of the Muslim Brothers in Jordan. Imad al-Fallouji became a member of this organization in 1983, during his studies in the capital city of the USSR.
In 1988 the underground network of the Palestinian Muslim Brothers in Soviet Union, as well as in many other countries, became controlled by HAMAS. Up to the middle of the next year the Gaza Strip branch leadership supervised it. Later, after the arrest of Sheikh Yassin and some of his "colleagues" by Israelis, the HAMAS leaders in the USA and its representatives in England took supervising in their hands. In April, 1993, London's edition Palestine Al-Muslimah informed that activists of HAMAS among the Palestinian students arranged in Russia campaign called to promote Ahmad Yassin's release from prison (they mainly dispatched petitions to the western embassies in Moscow).
Already after coming out from prison, in September 1998 Sheikh Yassin gave an interview to the Israeli Russian-speaking daily Novosty Nedeli. The leader of HAMAS declared that his organization has no representations in the territory of the former Soviet Union. "We would be glad, if somebody has agreed to help to open a branch of our organization in Russia. But we are not sure whether Moscow will agree to that. On the other hand, in Russia and other CIS countries there are many Palestinian students, and they could make a basis for HAMAS in these states. We could organize special courses on which we would explain our policy and our goals. It seems to me, that in the CIS there is already a very good base for creation there of the HAMAS branches" the leader of the Palestinian Islamic movement said. At the same time he admitted that "our people are everywhere", including Russia and the CIS countries.
In November, 1999 the largest Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot informed, referring to the sources in secret services that the Lebanese and Palestinian radical organizations, including HAMAS, conduct activity in Russia and other CIS countries. It was marked, that such information was received from members of these organizations, who graduated their studies in the former Soviet republics and were arrested by the Israelis.
According to the testimonies of the arrested, HAMAS representatives are engaged in recruitment of the Palestinian students in Russia. The large Russian cities of Saint Petersburg and Voronezh referred as the centers of their activity. Sources in the Israeli special services marked that a part of recruits passed military training on Northern Caucasus before they come back home and participate in the terrorist actions in Israel. The military attaché of the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv, "after consultation with the competent instances" declared that he knows nothing of that. In his turn, Yasser Arafat has reacted as follows: "These organizations do not require new training camps on Northern Caucasus as they prepare their own people on the Middle-Eastern bases ".
The Chechen Connections
During the first war in the Chechen Republic (December 1994 - August 1996) the leaders of HAMAS showed no interest in the events in this North Caucasian republic. On the issues of global policy HAMAS adheres to the views of the global movement of Muslim Brothers. Among activists of this movement and among many radical groupings, which have broken away from it, the idea that the Russo-Chechen conflict is a part of the sacred jihad, was spreading gradually during 1995-96. The results of this process became noticeable by the end of the war. Mujahids from all over the Muslim world started coming to the Chechen Republic, and the streams of financial assistance followed them from the Islamic organizations of the Middle East and Western Europe. As a consequence the interest to the Chechen Republic of the international Islamic movement, and also Arab mass media, especially in the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, in Lebanon and Jordan has increased.
Therefore many Muslims, in particular in some Arab countries, already perceived the beginning of the second Chechen campaign in the autumn of 1999 as "an intrusion of the Russian atheists to the land of Islam ". And what is important, together with Chechens hundreds of foreign volunteers battled the Russians. The leaders of HAMAS were not an exception and also paid attention to the events on Northern Caucasus.
During the first months of 2000 the anti-Russian demonstrations organized by Ahmad Yassin's nearest colleagues (in Gaza the speaker of HAMAS Abdel Aziz Rantisi was engaged in their preparation) passed in the biggest Palestinian cities. The participants of these actions burned the Russian flags and portraits of President Putin, shouting anti-Russian slogans. In October 2000, Sheikh Yassin in an interview to the Moscow newspaper Vremya Novostey named the Russians -"invaders" and called the "Muslims struggling in the Chechen Republic" "to battle against Russia". In August of the next year, the internal edition of the Israeli army Be-Mahane referring to the office of the head of the military intelligence AMAN, informed that HAMAS rendered financial assistance to "the Chechen insurgents".
Though later Yassin and his followers tried to change their image in the eyes of the Kremlin, HAMAS youth organizations were still paying attention to the jihad in the Chechen Republic.
Posters with the photo of Emir Khattab (since spring 1995 till the spring 2002 the head of the
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Emir Khattab |
paramilitary formations of the "Chechen Arabs"), were hung out and distributed during their demonstrations, together with brochures on sacred war on Caucasus. They were screening documentary films on daily life of the foreign mujahids in the Chechen Republic and their operations against the Russians. According to the information in our possession, the greatest amount of such materials was presented to the public at the end of February 2004 in Hebron University, during the so-called "Week of the Palestinian heritage".
Tactical Maneuver
In the first two years of Al-Aqsa Intifada, because of the Israelis' actions and the internal showdowns within the Palestinian leadership, the positions of the Palestinian Authority were broken. HAMAS took advantage of the situation. On the one hand, it took the initiative in the armed confrontation with the Israelis (in particular, by using the suicide bombers), and on the other, it took over the government functions in rendering humanitarian aid to the population. As a consequence, in 2002, in a number of Gaza Strip and West Bank localities HAMAS already had more influence than did FATAH, and sometimes – than did all the secular organizations together. As the Islamic movement became the leading force in the intifada, having a wide support of the population, it was already impossible to guarantee the end of the conflict without its participation. External forces striving to preserve their positions in the zone of the Middle Eastern conflict were bound to have dialogue with HAMAS. First to realize that were the Egyptians, who traditionally claim to be the patrons of the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. Since spring 2002, the Egyptian intelligence has been in a constant contact with Sheikh Yassin and his aides. Under the auspices of Cairo, the British established clandestine links with HAMAS political leaders. The efforts of the foreign intermediaries were directed at reaching a cease fire agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Extermination of the HAMAS armed wing
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| Salah Shehadeh |
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leader Salah Shehadeh in July 2002 slowed down this process. However, as early as in autumn of the same year, the Egyptians invited HAMAS leaders to hold talks in Cairo, to elaborate a common platform of the Palestinian organizations for the future negotiations with Israel. These talks took place under the auspices of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the European Union. For the first time HAMAS was internationally recognized, de facto. The terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, in April 2003, carried out by the British Muslims following the HAMAS initiative, made London reject any further contact with this organization. Under American and Israeli pressure Great Britain began insisting at including HAMAS political wing in the European list of terrorist organizations (its armed wing appeared in this list two years earlier). Although, the British proposal was rejected by the French, London's position actually meant the end of the EU links with HAMAS. Paris was only declaring the importance to continue dialogue with all forces in the Palestinian national movement. In practice, the French did not intend to take part in mediatory efforts together with the Egyptians (so much the more, the Americans and the Israelis would not ever let this happen). Besides that, before breaking contact, the British mediators acted on behalf of the EU as a whole, under the auspices of its envoy to the Middle East, Miguel Moratinos.
HAMAS always strived to become an alternative to secular current in the Palestinian national movement incarnated by the PLO. Goal that was declared by Sheikh Yassin – establishment of the Palestinian State in Palestine – could be attained only after destruction of the political model that was formed by Arafat due to the signing of the Oslo agreements. In 2002 (according to the poll carried out by Basem al-Yazuri, who headed the Department of Political Security in the General Security Service in Gaza Strip), HAMAS leaders had already posed them a practical goal of coming into power on the Palestinian "territories". To achieve this goal, the leadership of the organization tried to get a maximal international recognition, at the same time, not abandoning its principles. Realizing that it would be impossible to get a legitimization from the USA in a visible future, Sheikh Yassin staked on the big Muslim states and the EU (it is like this that the PLO once strived for the international recognition). In 2002, all the monarchies of Persian Gulf, and first of all – Saudi Arabia, as well as Iran, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, had been sustaining relations with HAMAS. Till spring 2003, the British were contacting the representatives of the Sheikh on behalf of the EU. After that, however, the situation changed. Regardless of this fact, HAMAS leaders continued to seek recognition outside the Muslim world, and they made an effort to establish contact with Russia.
A sharp change in the tone of HAMAS leaders, as far as Moscow was concerned, occurred in spring 2004. While only few years prior to it, Sheikh Yassin called for the Chechen Muslims to fight the "Russian occupation", this time HAMAS political leader Haled Mashal demonstrated
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Haled Mashal |
"a high interest in a strong and integrated Russia". Moreover, he wished Russia to "cure the bleeding Chechen wound as soon as possible", and even proposed his services in regulation of this conflict. In addition Mashal reminded: "The Palestinian resistance movements traditionally sustained good relations with the Soviet Union which had always supported us in our fight against the aggressive policy of the West, and against its placeman in the Middle East – Israel". Almost simultaneously the interview with HAMAS political leader was published by Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper, which is considered to be the horn of official Moscow. In this interview, Haled Mashal expressed his gratefulness to the Kremlin for not including his organization in the Russian list of terrorist organizations, contrary to the Americans and the Europeans. He explained this by the fact that "Russia lives according to its own principles".
Inviting Moscow to establish contact, HAMMAS political leader looked back to the Soviet past. Drawing parallels between the USSR and Russia within the Palestinian context naturally evokes a comparison between PLO and HAMAS. Soviet Union staked on Palestine Liberation Organization, as at that time it was the leading force in the Palestinian national movement. The same way as the place of the Soviet regime is now occupied by the new Kremlin leadership, the former PLO role today belongs to HAMAS. In parallel, Haled Mashal tried to strike the chord of Moscow's traditional aspiration to enhance its position in the Middle East, in the framework of geopolitical antagonism with the West.
Virtual Bridgehead
HAMAS was one of the first Islamic organizations that started broadly using Internet in the 1990s. Virtual reality allowed the adherents of Sheikh Yassin to carry out agitation activities among the Palestinians not only in Palestine, but also in numerous communities abroad, beyond Israeli or American control. Moreover, Internet made it much easier for HAMAS activists and supporters in different countries to keep in touch. Today the Islamic movement is the leader of all the Palestinian organizations as far as the Internet activity is concerned. In course of the January parliamentary elections agitation, HAMAS propagandists paid a serious attention to web resources, in particular in their work with young people. Websites functioning on Russia's territory played an important role in this process.
Since the late 1990s, HAMAS started using technical services of the East European Internet companies. Such choice was dictated by an aspiration to avoid the control of the Israelis and the Americans who aimed at closing the organization's websites in western countries. Initially, the regional center of HAMAS' virtual activity was Ukraine. The Palestinian propagation center –
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| Logo of Russian web site of the Palestine-info |
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Palestine-info – began functioning on the basis of the local Internet providers. The center was founded in December 1998, and it now encompasses a whole group of websites in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Russian, and French languages. Russia turned into HAMAS' biggest East European virtual bridgehead in spring 2004. It happened after Sweden had cut off HAMAS' internet activity on its territory.
At present, five of the seven biggest HAMAS websites are functioning from the territory of the CIS member-states. Three of these sites use services of the Russian providers:
http://www.palestine-info.cc (in French).
http://www.palestine-info.ru (in Russian).
www.palestine-persian.info (in Persian).
There are two more smaller but rather well-known websites that are functioning from Russia's territory:
www.al-fateh.net – the Danish website of HAMAS in Arabic. It is on-line since September 2002.
http://www.palestinianforum.net/forum/ - HAMAS' forum in Arabic. It contains the following thematic divisions: politics, history, Islamic law, culture and art.
The information about the abovementioned websites can be found in the American, Russian, and Israeli sources, specializing on the Internet issues. However, HAMAS representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan announced in October 2005, that this data is diffused by the Israeli secret
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| Osama Hamdan |
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services. According to him, none of the listed internet resources is the official HAMAS website, and all of them are functioning only due to a personal initiative of HAMAS adherents.
On the other hand, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (MAMAL), which has a connection to the Israeli secret services, claims that functioning of all the abovementioned websites is coordinated by "a high-ranking HAMAS representative" whose name is Nizar Hassan Suleiman Hussein. According to the same source, he works in Beirut, within the office of Osama Hamdan himself, being subordinated to the Propaganda Division of HAMAS Damascus leadership.
According to the Russian resources, key person in activity of the HAMAS local internet-infrastructure is Amyr Aitashev. In October 2005, we sent him a number of questions in order to verify such claims. Unfortunately, there was no answer to our request. According to various reports of different Russian forums, it is known that Aitashev graduated from the Mountainous-Altai University, where he studied the history of the Altai population (Turkic people that inhabits Altai Area in the south of Western Siberia).
Not only does Aitashev thoroughly know the past of the Altaians, he also understands perfectly the history of the Islamic civilization. Few years ago he was the acting office manager of the spiritual leadership of the Muslims of Altai Area. Simultaneously, he participated in political activity of the Civil Party of Russia, which existed throughout 2002-2005. Many of its activists were in the past members of various Islamic organizations. The party opposed operations in Iraq, and supported the President Putin.
During the last years, Russian authorities have appreciably toughened control over the local internet. The main purpose of that was to suppress the activity of websites belonging to the democratic opposition and to the radical Islamic movement addressed to the Russian Muslims. Thus, the existence in Russia of the websites that have any connection to HAMAS is possible only due to a secret connivance of the authorities.
A Tacit Recognition
In February, 2003, Russia's Supreme Court, basing on the data provided by the FSB, published a list of 15 "terrorist organizations ", which are subjects to a full interdiction within the limits of the state. Mainly the Arab and Central-Asian groupings, and also the welfare funds rendering support to the followers of radical Islam on Northern Caucasus appeared in it. It is interesting that the Russian "black list" includes the international Muslim brotherhood movement. HAMAS is actually one of its regional branches, however, it was not included in the list.
In November, 2003 the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, during his visit to Moscow, asked President Putin to reconsider Russia's attitude towards HAMAS, and to include it in the "black list". The Russian leader promised to promote the legal decision of this problem. However, since then no changes in this document occurred. But in March 2004 Russian Foreign Affairs Minister's special representative on Middle Eastern settlement Alexander Kalugin declared: "HAMAS is not included in the Russian list of the terrorist organizations as it is not operating in the Russian territory. Accordingly we do not have legal estimation of its activity". On January, 31, 2006 during the annual press conference Vladimir Putin especially emphasized: Our position towards HAMAS differs from the American and West-European one. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation never declared HAMAS a terrorist organization".
The fact that the Palestinian branch of Muslim Brotherhood does not appear in the Russia's " black list" not only allows HAMAS to conduct its activity in this country freely, but also enables Moscow to conduct contacts with the leadership of this organization.
A Diplomatic Overture
As Alexander Bovin, the first Russian ambassador in Tel Aviv (1991 –1997), wrote in his
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Alexander Bovin |
memoirs, during this period Moscow considered HAMAS only through the prism of its relations with Yasser Arafat. The first President of Palestine still was considered in the Kremlin not just as the only exponent of Palestinian interests, but also an unequivocal partner on behalf of the Palestinian national movement. In this connection, Russian diplomacy saw HAMAS as a destructive force interfering with Arafat's political initiatives and challenging his leadership. During the next eight years, Moscow did not change its view on Sheikh Yassin and his followers. However it did not act with either any sharp statements or actions against HAMAS. The exception was only one official communiqué of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, published after a meeting of the international intermediaries on Middle-Eastern settlement, which took place in New York in September 2003. That was the only time in history when Moscow named HAMAS’ actions against Israelis - "as rascally acts of terrorism".
According to our sources, the situation began to vary significantly at the beginning of 2005, after the presidential elections in Palestine. The reason for that change was the confidential information received by the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv. It was connected to the former head of the French cabinet, Michelle Rokar, heading a group of observers from the European Community at the elections. Upon returning to Brussels, in a private meeting at the EU headquarters, he called for establishing contacts with HAMAS.
The information on that, along with an indication of the source, and also his comments, and recommendations of embassy employees, were immediately sent to Moscow. Soon after that the experts in the department of the Middle East and Northern Africa, and also their colleagues from the corresponding division of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) received an instruction to prepare a detailed analysis on the situation in the Palestinian territories before the forthcoming parliamentary elections. Special attention was paid to the arrangement of forces in the Palestinian society, the scale of the influence of HAMAS and its chances in the future elections. In several months the head of the Russian diplomatic representation in Palestine, Alexey Pogodin, received an order "to probe the ground" for a possible establishing of secret contact with the members of the HAMAS leadership. For this purpose the Russian side used connections with one well-known doctor in Nablus, who received his education in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) and married a Russian woman. Nowadays he retains a close relationship with some Islamic leaders on the western bank of the Jordan River. With his help the meeting of the first secretary of the Russian representatives in Palestine, Mikhail Ivanov, with one of political leaders of HAMAS took place. What exactly they were talking about is unknown, but almost at once after the meeting the Russian state TV-channel Rossia screened an interview with one of the leading political leaders of HAMAS, Mahmud az-Zahar.
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| Michael Margelov |
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A bit later, shortly before the elections to the Palestinian parliament, Michael Margelov, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the Russian parliament's upper chamber, known for his close connections with the Kremlin administration, declared "a necessity to search for compromises even with such radical movements as HAMAS". And on January 27, two days after the parliamentary elections in Palestine, the special representative of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Kalugin, publicly declared the possibility of Moscow conducting contacts with the leadership of HAMAS.
This week, on January 31, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergey Ivanov, has not excluded such a possibility. He even added an offer to include armed gangs of HAMAS to the "security structures of the Palestinian autonomy". By the way, since the autumn of 2005, there are representatives of the Russian Ministry of Defense present in the Gaza Strip, responsible for contacts with the Palestinian security services. As well-informed circles in this region claim, they are estimating rather critically the position of their fellow diplomats...
Read in the next part: The Russian secret services versus HAMAS
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