30.05.05 

Covert "love affair" – the full story, part IV    (Part I  and  Part II  and  Part III)

Russian Weapons to "Free Jerusalem"

Hezbollah`s special operations unit ("Muntamat al-Jihad al-Islami" - MJI or "Islamic Jihad Organization") emissaries have been active in Russia since the middle of the nineties. Residing in Moscow, Imad Hadj Hassan Salame heads this special operations unit. His men were an integral part of Hezbollah`s international network for smuggling weapons to Lebanon. Salame, coordinating these activities in Russia, was also responsible for assisting the emissaries of MJI in Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldova, Kazakhstan and Georgia. Sometimes he even provided the logistic support to his colleagues in Eastern European countries, such as Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic and Slovakia. In his turn, Salame was backed up by certain arms and diamonds dealers of Lebanese origin working in Africa, who had close relations with Russian arms dealers. Imad Kabir (also known as Imad Bakri), Talal ad-Din and Muhammad Darbakh were among them. As key figures in Hezbollah`s weapons smuggling network in Western and Central Africa, these three play an important role in equipping and financing the organization. Imad Bakri, for example, started his career as a diamond merchant. In 1995, with the assistance of Iranian intelligence, he managed to establish good personal relations with the President of Zaire (Mobutu Sese Seko) and his ally – the leader of UNITA - Angola rebel movement (Jonas Savimbi). The same year, Bakri started smuggling to Angolan rebels large quantities of weaponry from the countries of the former Warsaw Pact. His major partner in this business was an ex-GRU officer, arms trafficker Viktor Bout. His responsibility was to purchase the weapons throughout the CIS countries and Eastern Europe, and to deliver them by planes to Africa. Angolan militants were paying for guns with diamonds. Precious stones were sold to Lebanese merchants residing in Belgium, who cooperated with MJI (Aziz Naser was the head of the Belgian diamond dealers network).
Immense profits allowed Bakri to expand his activity into additional African countries. In 1997, he and his Russian partner started to sell not only light arms but also heavy weaponry, such as APC`s and surface-to-air missile systems. From each deal, Hezbollah received its share of revenues. Later Bakri started also to transfer part of the Russian and Eastern European weaponry to Lebanon via several routes. The shortest route was through Armenia – the weapons arrived there by planes and by trucks traveled over Iranian and Syrian territory to Lebanon. The other way was more tangled. Weapons were flown from Europe to one of the West African states, and from there transported via Sudanese ports on board merchant ships to Lebanon. The Iranian intelligence and African MJI backed up transfers of arms. Ali Akhbar Mohtashemi, ex- ambassador of Iran to Damascus and Khartoum and one of the initiators of Hezbollah, played a major role in the beginning of these arms deliveries. Additionally, the Moscow-based MJI branch was authorized to seek new "sources of weapons" in Russia to be purchased for the Shia terrorists and the Iranian intelligence service. One of its most daring operations was the attempt in the summer of 1995 to purchase, for the paltry sum of $600 thousand, elements for the construction of atomic warheads. Abu-Harif and Abu-Madjid – two MJI agents – were involved in this mission, which included smuggling of the components out of the Russian military plant in the city of Elektrostal, situated not far from Moscow.

The Hezbollah`s Honorary Consul
The Russian MJI branch was also responsible for providing assistance to Hezbollah`s infrastructure in CIS and Eastern European countries. Depending on geographic size and "military resources", one or several emissaries of the organization were sent to reside in some of these states. They worked undercover as Lebanese, Iranian or French "merchants", conducting legal trading activity. In some states, the agents of Hezbollah even married local women to acquire citizenship. This helped them to carry out their main role – provide assistance in logistics and in mediating the contacts between local dealers, authorities, etc. and Hezbollah`s envoys arriving in the country to purchase specific equipment or for other purposes.
Lebanese businessman Mahmud Hamoud stands out among such agents residing in CIS. He came to Rumania in 1992 and for five years conducted trading activity successfully. Assisted by his business contacts, he even became the Lebanese consul in Bucharest. Due to this official status and his wealth, he gained access to the highest officials, high ranking officers and, of course, leading businessmen – not only in Rumania, but also in Moldova, which he used to visit frequently. Over the course of the years, information about his secret mission on behalf of the Shia terrorist organization started to pile up in Bucharest. The Rumanian intelligence SRI initiated surveillance, observing and acuminating data on his travels and meetings. In the beginning of 1997, he was forced to leave Bucharest for Kishinev. He quickly became the Lebanese consul to Moldova. A year later, the President of the country even appoints him Moldova`s official representative in some Arab states. Hamoud became an exclusive economic mediator on cooperation between this ex-Soviet republic and the Arab world. In the beginning of 2000, he received citizenship in Moldova. A year later, he married Olesya Diakova - daughter of the ex-chairman of the state Parliament. Yet again, at the end of 2001, Moldavian intelligence received proof of his involvement with Hezbollah and activities on behalf of this organization in the region. This led to Hamoud`s expulsion from Moldova, shortly after his wedding. However, his job was already done – while he was staying in Kishinev, undercover cells of Hezbollah were organizing among the Arab students studying in the city. The ULIM University was the center of this activity. In 2001 (shortly before Hamoud`s expulsion), 2245 students, mostly from Muslim countries, studied in Moldova (427 from Jordan, 569 from Syria, 107 from Sudan and 31 from the Palestinian Authority). More then 600 of them were involved in the activities of different Islamic cells, mainly in Hezbollah`s.

Bazaar in Pridnestrovie
Shortly after Hamoud`s arrival in Moldova, commercial relations were established between the Shia agents and arms traffickers in the area of the conflict in Pridnestrovie. Following the collapse of the USSR, the local Russian leaders declared the independence of the republic, counting on becoming a part of Russia. Moscow's covert support of the separatists led to the armed confrontation with the Moldavians. When the war ended, Russia's position and influence on local leaders remained, as did the deployed Russian forces in the region. Yet as a result of the battles, all the economic infrastructure in the Republic of Pridnestrovie was demolished, except the military industry built in the Soviet era, which became the main source of profit for this separatist district.
A high-ranking MJI delegation came to Pridnestrovie in 1997 in the guise of "Lebanese merchants". They visited the "Elektromash" plant in Tiraspol and the "Pribor" factory, being accompanied by the representatives of the "Sheriff" – the exclusive local arms company, which belongs to the son of Vladimir Smirnov - the President of Pridnestrovie at that time. He personally authorized the deal selling light arms, machine guns, ammunition, anti-tank missiles and portable anti-aircraft rockets to Hezbollah`s emissaries. The MJI network provided logistical support for transfers of this weaponry via Bulgaria, Armenia and Abkhazia (another Moscow- backed separatist region in Caucasus).

The Iranian Trail
Besides the transfers of weapons purchased by MJI operatives in Russia, there was another way to arm Hezbollah with Russian weapons – by means of the military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran. In several cases, the data substantiating these transfers has became known to the Western media and was published as part of an effort to stop the transaction. For example, on April 16,s 1997, Bill Gertz wrote in The Washington Times: "Russia is selling advanced air- defense systems to Iran, including the latest version of a hand-held anti-aircraft missile that Tehran intends to provide to Hezbollah terrorists. Such transactions would violate a pledge Russian President Boris Yeltsin made during the 1994 summit with President Clinton to block all new conventional arms sales to Iran. The missile sales talks took place in February and last month between Iranian intelligence agents and Russian arms brokers in Moscow, who offered two S-300 series anti-aircraft missiles launchers (SA-10 and SA-12) for sale at discount prices, Pentagon intelligence officials said." The newspaper also learned that this deal worth $180 million includes, besides 96 missiles for SA-10 and SA-12, 500 shoulder launched "Igla" missiles, part of which Iran planned to hand over to Hezbollah.
History repeated itself three and a half years later. On October 24, 2000, American sources reported, "Since yesterday 325 Russian missiles are being loaded into freight train and a ship to be transferred to Iran. The deal between Moscow and Tehran on purchasing of 700 "Igla" missiles and other weapons worth $1.75 billion was signed three weeks ago." The deal came about, even despite President Clinton's personal appeal to President Putin to cancel it. Israeli sources reported that part of the missile shipment later fell to Hezbollah`s lot. In January, 2005, Israeli security sources expressed anxiety following the upcoming deal between Russia and Syria on delivery of "Igla" missiles to Damascus. The Israelis fear that the missiles will be transferred from Syria to Hezbollah and may even fall into the hands of the Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Russian Instructors Return to Lebanon
In the second half of the nineties, agents of MJI started to recruit Russian ex-officers from elite and special units for training missions in Lebanese bases of Hezbollah. Initially, several dozen ex-"military advisers" who had trained the Syrian Army in the eighties in Lebanon were hired. As mercenaries they came back and taught Hezbollah`s terrorists in the Bekaa Valley how to plant mines, sharp shoot and collect intelligence. An interview with one of them was published in the Russian newspaper "Evreyskii Mir" (Saint-Petersburg) in June, 2000.

Back to Main    |    Part I    |    Part II    |    Part III

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