DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - U.S.A./RUSSIAN-CHECHNYA

Chechen jihadists help Osama bin Laden hunt for nukes

Al Qaeda has been bolstered by an ally that could provide the Islamist movement with the boost needed to attack the United States.

The Chechen insurgency has been providing al Qaeda with expertise in a range of weapons technology, including chemical and biological weapons.

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Yossef Bodansky, director of the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare until 2004, said the Chechens, who often carry European Union passports, have learned how to look and act Western so they don't attract attention and could be the key in al Qaeda’s plans against the United States. Bodansky said the Chechens, many of them army veterans, have become an increasingly important element in the Islamic holy war against the United States and the West.

"The Chechen jihadist leadership was instrumental in the acquisition of the nuclear suitcase bombs for Osama bin Laden," Bodansky told Insight. "The Chechens also provided the expertise required to activating and detonating these bombs."

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"Despite their relatively small numbers, the Chechen mujahedeen came to play an increasingly important role in the global Jihad," Bodansky said. "Many of the Chechens had extensive military knowledge and expertise gleaned during their service in the Soviet and Russian military, including service in Afghanistan."

The book, entitled, "Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda's Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror,” which is published by HarperCollins, said the Chechens have been bolstered by mercenaries from Ukraine and the Baltic states of the former Soviet Union. Bodansky said this has provided the Chechen movement as well as al Qaeda with a huge pool of expertise in sabotage, communications, military and combat engineering, logistics, intelligence, information technology and WMD.

"The presence of Chechen experts makes a significant difference in the fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip," Bodansky said.

Bodansky said the Chechens have established training camps in Chechnya as well as in neighboring Georgia. He said the camps have hosted Western volunteers as well as al Qaeda-aligned insurgents from North Africa.

The vast majority of captured Europeans suspected of planning WMD operations in Britain, France and Germany were said to have been trained in Chechnya and Georgia.

"Since they all travel with genuine EU passports--and the clandestine converts with Christian names--they do not need visas to enter the U.S. and there is nothing in their background to suggest they are Muslim, let alone highly trained terrorists," Bodansky said. "They thus make the ideal jihadist terrorists for spectacular strikes at the heart of America."

A key threat is the Chechen ability to disrupt energy supplies to the United States and Europe.

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"These Chechen and Chechen-trained networks have the capability to inflict major damage to numerous energy-related installations worldwide that are increasingly crucial to the sustenance of the economy of the U.S. and the West," Bodansky said. "The aggregate impact of such strikes will be devastating to the global economy. Needless to say that Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri and several other key jihadist leaders, as well as Chechen chieftain Dokka Umarov, have repeatedly stressed the importance of striking and destroying the energy infrastructure of the West."



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