Dr. Alexandr Nemets and Dr. Thomas Torda. Thursday, Dec.
20, 2001. NewsMax.com.
1. New Data
According to the Russian news agency Ria-Novosti and the Pravda-run website,
on Aug. 14, 2001, Russian Deputy Prime Minister (in charge of defense industry
and arms trade) Ilya Klebanov and Minister of Defense (MOD) Sergei Ivanov denied
media reports of a possible closure by December 2001 of the Russian radar data
processing center – a well-known spy hub – in Lourdes, a suburb of
Havana.
During his visit to Cuba this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin,
accompanied by Fidel Castro, visited the Lourdes center of the Russian MOD. At a
meeting with center specialists, Putin noted that their work is very much
needed, "not only by the military, but also by the political leadership of
the country."
Putin said at a press conference in Havana that both Russia and Cuba are
currently interested in continuing the operations of the Lourdes base. According
to Putin, this center serves the interests of the Russian military and also
provides some information obtained for appropriate Cuban government agencies.
In a separate report,
published by NewsMax and widely carried on U.S. websites, Orlando
Gutierrez-Boronat of the Center for the Study of a National Option wrote on
Sept. 20, 2001, that Cuban President Fidel Castro, during a visit to Iran, Syria
and Libya in May 2001, held talks in Tehran with Iranian Supreme Spiritual
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Castro stated that "America is extremely weak today" and promised
students at Tehran University that "the imperialist king will finally fall"
because "Iran and Cuba have reached the conclusion that together they can
tear down the USA."
The Castro regime, this report continues, has continued to harbor
international terrorists, pursued a strategic alliance with terrorist states to
create an 'anti-Western' international front, and directly engaged in terrorist
attacks and espionage against Americans. In particular, Cuba's close
relationships with Iraq and some Middle Eastern terrorist groups are well known.
Cuba today, Gutierrez-Boronat writes, continues to serve as a base for
coordination and mutual support among transnational terrorist organizations,
including Colombian and some European-based groups.
It is also known that Cuba is active in bioweapons development. In October
2000, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and the Iranian Vice-Minister of Health
participated in the groundbreaking for a biotech R&D facility outside
Tehran. Experts expressed doubts about the supposed medical objectives of this
installation.
The report says that there are links between Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda
network, the Iranian government and the Castro regime. Castro and bin Laden have
worked hard to build a common front to bring down the U.S. and to develop
biological weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
In February 1998, bin Laden announced the creation of an "international
front" against the U.S. According to a document obtained by the PBS program
"Frontline," bin Laden "regards an anti-American alliance with
Iran and China as something to be considered."
But there may be more to the Castro-bin Laden connection than the Iran link.
In a story dated March 4, 2000, the Associated Press reported that a young
Afghan who had trained during the previous winter at a camp in Kunar Province,
in northeastern Afghanistan, said he saw men from Chechnya, Sudan, Libya, Iraq,
Iran, Cuba and North Korea. "The North Korean," he said, "had
brought chemical weapons."
A third report, from the December 2001 issue of Moscow-based Sovershenno
secretno (Top Secret), excerpted here, indicates that Al-Qaeda has sleeper
agents and sleeper cells all over the world. This organization has copied KGB
tactics and has high-ranking protectors in several "countries of concern."
The following points from this report are of particular importance:
Baghdad protectors – For many years, Saddam's regime was the most
serious supporter and protector of Al-Qaeda. Baghdad knew everything about the
Sept. 11 attacks in advance.
Iran has supported Al-Qaeda in the following areas: joint planning of
terrorist actions; training of Al-Qaeda fighters in camps in Iran, Syria and
Libya; financial support; and providing fake documents, telecom gear and
explosives.
Ayman Al-Zawahiri, leader of the Iran-financed extremist organization
Egyptian Islamic Jihad, became not only the closest associate of bin Laden, but
also his successor and – as judged by U.S. investigators – chief
planner of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. CIA analysts now have no doubts: Tehran
knew in advance about the 9-11 attacks.
The Balkan track and "Borodin dungeon" – The notorious "Pal
Palych" Borodin, long a Kremlin insider, also has had a definite connection
to Al-Qaeda, via a Swiss businessman of Albanian origin named Bedget Pakkoli.
Why did they close Lourdes? The Lourdes spy center was the largest such base
in the Western Hemisphere. It allowed Russia and Cuba to keep under electronic
surveillance the entire North American continent and to have access to phone
conversations, other telecommunications, and the databases of the U.S. and its
neighbors.
Former Russian Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were much more
pliable than Putin, but they didn't give up the Lourdes spy center. Putin
himself, as a member of the intelligence community, knows perfectly well the
value of the Lourdes base, but he had very strong arguments in favor of closing
this station. The decision to close the center was taken just after the 9-11
terrorist strikes and wasn't accidental by any means.
American special services have information that terrorist Mohamed Atta, the
key figure behind the 9-11 attacks, had connections to the Cuban intelligence
services and in spring 1999 met with their high-ranking representative in Miami,
Fla. – not far from the site where the future suicide squad got its flight
school training.
The Lourdes base, in addition to secret missions, was also tasked with
active tracking of air flights of all kinds throughout the U.S. The center had a
full set of flight codes for the U.S. Air Force and civilian airlines. Once, in
1999, the center broke into the U.S. air traffic control system and sent –
with the help of a powerful, 1,500-kilowatt transmitter – a fake flight
signal, which almost caused a serious accident in the air.
In short, the Lourdes center had accumulated a huge database on U.S.
civilian airline routes, schedules and procedures. Cuba very likely shared this
information with Al-Qaeda – which may explain the devilish professionalism
behind the 9-11 attacks.
It seems that Putin understood that U.S. investigative teams could acquire –
or had already acquired – data on the "Lourdes/Castro/Al-Qaeda"
connection, which became the decisive factor in the closure of the Lourdes
facility. It should be mentioned here that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has
close ties with Saddam's regime – as well as with Putin and Castro –
and has been known to exchange warm greetings with leading terrorist Carlos "The
Jackal," originally from Venezuela.
2. Conclusions
The following conclusions are clear: Information needed to carry out the
9-11 attacks went from the Lourdes center, via Cuban secret agents in Miami, to
Atta and other members of his suicide squad. This became the decisive factor in
the successful realization of the 9-11 strikes. The Kremlin knew in advance of
this horrific plot and blessed the operation. Tehran also knew everything in
advance – from its agents in Al-Qaeda and from Castro himself.
In September-October, the authors published in NewsMax articles showing that
the Kremlin and Russian Duma (lower house of Parliament) knew about the
forthcoming terrorist strikes on the U.S. as early as July, and that the Duma's
Economic Commission held hearings to prepare Russia for the "fall of
America" – the title of an article published by Dr. Tatyana Koryagina
in Pravda on July 12, 2001 – and to get as much benefit as possible from
this foreknowledge.
(See
Expert:
Russia Knew in Advance, Encouraged Citizens to Cash Out Dollars and
Russian
Expert Who 'Predicted' Attacks Warns of New Ones.)
Now it is easy to find the source of the Kremlin's knowledge. Moreover, we
conclude that Putin, Castro and Ayatollah Khamenei knew everything about the
coming terrorist attacks by May 2001 or even earlier. And what of the source of
the anthrax letters that terrified America for months?
The authors feel that now, with the Afghan war almost over, the Baghdad
regime should become the next target of the global anti-terrorist campaign. It
remains for Putin and Co. to show where their real support lies – behind
President Bush, or behind Saddam.
Dr. Alexandr V. Nemets is a consultant to the American Foreign Policy
Council. He is co-author of "Chinese-Russian Military Relations, Fate of
Taiwan and New Geopolitics."
Dr. Thomas J. Torda has been a Chinese linguist specializing in science and
technology with FBIS, and a Chinese/Russian defense technology consultant with
the Office of Naval Intelligence.
All Rights Reserved © NewsMax.com | 
