#7
Russian Sources Claim US Attempting To 'Recruit'
Russian Veterans of Afghan War
Al-Sharq al-Awsat (London) in Arabic
30 October 2001
[translation for personal use only]
Report by Sami Amarah from Moscow: "United States Offering Generous Salaries to Russian Veterans of Afghanistan"
Russian sources have asserted that official US circles are seeking to recruit Russian veterans who fought in Afghanistan to join the international coalition forces attacking the Taliban Movement.
The sources said the US Defense Department (Pentagon) is offering a salary of %$5,500 to volunteers. They added that the US military attach? in Moscow is advertising this offer on the Internet and looking for persons with combat experience in hot regions. They noted that the Russian military establishments are dismayed by this effort.
While the Russian and US sides are asserting the extensive scope of the agreement on confronting terrorism and the need to liquidate its bases in Afghanistan, contradictions over other aspects of the crisis are emerging. These include the position toward the Taliban Movement and the real relationship with the Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan. The US side believes in the need to go back to the situation that existed prior to the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979. This means that former King Mohamad Zaher Shah and the various ethnic groups and nationalities should be represented together with the moderates in the Taliban Movement. The alliance led by deposed President Borhannodin Rabbani, which has the support and backing of the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin himself, believes that it is impossible to restore the monarchy. This alliance is relying primarily on the ethnic groups that are close to Central Asia, that is, the Tajiks and Uzbeks. It agrees with Putin's remarks "that there is no place for Taliban in the anticipated coalition government" in Afghanistan. Tajikistan supports this stand.
These contradictions are apparently the cause of the Northern Alliance forces' military failure in the confrontation with Taliban and the inconsistencies in the levels of US support. The sources said Washington is playing the card of the contradictions between the commonwealth countries. While Moscow relies primarily on Dushanbe (Tajikistan), the forces of General Mohammad Fahim in northeast Afghanistan, and the forces of Gen. Ismail Khan in Herat province in western Afghanistan, the United States is concentrating its efforts on backing Gen. Abdol Rahid Dostum's forces. US aircraft are therefore attacking the positions that will help the forces of the Uzbek general advance. This is putting the Tajik forces in the alliance in an embarrassing position and forcing them to operate without US air cover and is even subjecting them to the dangers of air strikes, like the 22 October incident when the Tajik positions in northern Afghanistan were bombarded.
Despite the official statements about Moscow's blessing for the US presence in Central Asia, there are apprehensions that Uzbekistan "might weaken" under the current pressure from the United States, which recently announced the allocation of $8 billion for the agricultural sector there.
The pro-Moscow Tajikistan is meanwhile standing nearby content with the presence of the "201st Battalion" of the Russian border guards.
Russian sources have revealed that the military establishment and the general staff are apprehensive about the possible bolstering of the US military presence in the region and NATO's expansion in Central Asia that this would entail, which might include extending the US missile shield cover to them. This is in addition to the danger of the commonwealth's collapse and the decline of Russia's influence in the former Soviet Union's empire. The sources said the general staff commanders broached this subject with President Putin before he left for the Shanghai summit.
This is apparently one explanation for Moscow's admission for the first time through Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov that Russia supported and continues to support the Northern Alliance forces and also his statements about supplying these forces with T-55 tanks and heavy armored vehicles, which some sources estimated would cost around $50 million.
[Description of Source: London Al-Sharq al-Awsat in Arabic -- Influential Saudi-owned London daily providing independent coverage of Arab and international issues; editorials reflect official Saudi views on foreign policy.]
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