The rogue intelligence chief of Ramzan Kadyrov's illegal secret service, known by his assumed name, Ruslan Saidov may have been involved in organizing the recent attacks againt the German expeditionary force in Afghanistan during the visit of foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Ruslan Saidov, his real name Ruslan Sadulaev, has had a strange carrier even by the standards of former Soviet intelligence community. According to some CIS sources, in the 1980s Saidov went through the military intelligence training as a “deep penetration” mole for a work with the Near Eastern elites, in particular, secret Sufi brotherhoods. Part of his training included service in Afganistan in a special group of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU) that targeted heroin trafficking. In 1990 Saidov--half-Chechen-- was sent to help General Dudaev, the first Chechen President, who was moving towards independence from Russia. Under Dudaev and Maskhadov, Saidov served as a deputy of Khozh Nukhaev, chief of the Chechen external intelligence service, presently wanted for the murder of the Forbes journalist Paud Khlebnikov. At the same time, as it had become recently known, Saidov was on the service of Uzbek military intelligence where he was transferred shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Presently, Saidov (aka Mohammedov) holds the position of a special advisor to the Uzbek defense minister Murzaev. From the mid 1990s Saidov became established in Turkey under the protection of the military and has several Turkish passports. His associate Nukhaev is thought to be in hiding somewhere in the Istambul area also under the protection of the military. Both Nukhaev and Saidov are thought to be Sufi sheiks. According to some German sources, they also secretly belong to some radical offshoot of the Grey Wolf underground. Under Ramzan Kadyrov, Saidov was became the head of the illegal external intelligence service of the Chechen Republic that was created on the basis of the “Istambul Bureau” -- the supersecret intelligence outfit created by Maskhadov in 1999, just before the second war with Russia, and based in Turkey.

The investigative group burtsev.ru learned about the structure of this illegal intelligence service in the summer of 2008 and published two articles about it. 1 Perhaps, the most interesting part of Saidov's service is the so-called “Bagram Group,” deployed at the U. S. Bargam Air Base in Parwan province of Afghanistan. Our sources claim that the Bagram group conducts operations against the intelligence assets of Russia, Iran, China, Germany and France in Afghanistan, Waziristan, and Uzbekistan. Their activities are coordinated with the military intelligence of USA, England, Canada, Poland, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan.

The Chechens is told to have U. S. documents and “a lot of money.” It is possible that they have been deployed under the cover of the private military company KBR that serves a big contract at the Bagram Base. KBR (formerly KBR Halliberton) holds a 13 percent stake in the private intelligence company Far West LLC (Dubai). Saidov is a vice-president of this company and owns 25 percent of its stock. Far West LLC has been exposed as a front for intelligence groups and national security circles from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Ukraine, Belorussia, and Lithuania, politically close to the right wing of the Republican Party and Washington neoconservative establishment. Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saidov's senior partner since the mid-90s, reportedly keeps close watch over its operations. His relative Prince Rasheed aar Rasheed, senior officer of General Intelligence, is the president of Far West LLC. Politically, the company has been also linked to the US defense minister Robert Gates through his old-time CIA colleague Fritz Ermarth who is a long-time associate of Saidov and his partners – former GRU officer General Vladimir Filin of Ukrainian military intelligence and Ret. GRU Colonel Anton Surikov, responsible for informational and political projects of Far West LLC.

The public pronouncements of this group of people show strongly negative, even hateful, atitude to Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Helmut Schroeder whom they blame for their balanced and constructive approach to European and German relations with Russia and especially for their promotion of the Nord Stream gas project. The right-wing anti-Russian cabal behind Far West LLC fears that this project will reduce Russia's dependence on Ukraine's pipelines, increase economic and political ties between Germany and Russia and thus weaken the US leverage against both countries.

This is why Saidov's hints that the attacks against German troops in Afghanistan had something to do with his intelligence capabilities in this region were not entirely unexpected.

One of the entries in the LiveJournal published by FarWest. The headline says: “Ruslan Saidov: Steinmeier is taken aim at. Someone informs the Talibs about all his movements. Even in Germany... “

Saidov reference to his intelligence assets in Germany deserves respectful attitude. One department of his intelligence service works with Chechen diasporas in Europe and elsewhere. Only recently they demonstrated their lethal effectiveness in Vienna, Istambul, and Dubai. Let not Berlin be next...

2 May, 2009

Примечания

1  Маккейн и Фарвест. Left.ru 6 (2008) <http://left.ru/2008/6/kagan175.phtml> and Kadyrov's “death squads” in Afghanistan. UN Report by Professor Alstone. Left.ru 6 (2008) <http://left.ru/2008/6/alston_eng175.phtml >