Tag: Russia

25 December 1979

Posted on by William Arkin

 

Over a three-day period, beginning near midnight on Christmas Eve, four Soviet Army motorized rifle divisions invade Afghanistan as Soviet special forces seize airports in Kabul. The communist, exiled leader Babrak Karmal is installed as president.

It is the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union, but also the birth of a new brand of Islamic fundamentalism not based on animus towards Israel. Over the next decade of fighting—devastating to Afghanistan and to Afghan fighters—al Qaeda is born. The CIA’s decade-long, covert-action support for the war against the Soviets reportedly involves billions in arms and support, much of it funneled through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Arab migration to the fight—the holy jihad supported by a young Osama bin Laden—does not really get underway for another five years, but then thousands of volunteers make the holy pilgrimage to Afghanistan to fight the foreign invader, some joining al Qaeda as it later forms (in 1988) and some just jihadi tourists who return to their home countries of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

17 December 1998

Posted on by William Arkin
Al Kut Barracks West - Northwest Iraq

 

U.N. weapons inspectors evacuate Iraq for the last time, removing with them a secret NSA telephone monitoring device that American agents had brought in under United Nations cover.

After weeks of disputes and obstructions by the Iraqis—stopping or interfering with inspections of “presidential sites” and other sensitive installations associated with Saddam Hussein’s protect—UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler decides to withdraw all U.N. staff, setting the stage for American airstrikes.

President Clinton then signs the orders for Operation Desert Fox, and airstrikes against Iraqi targets begin just before 1 AM (2200 GMT on December 16). Desert Fox is aimed officially, according to the White House, against Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that his country had also been left with “no option” but to mount the strikes. Russia and China condemn the actions and Russia recalls its ambassador from Washington. The next day, Russia recalls its ambassador to London.

Secretary Albright holds a briefing on Desert Fox and was asked how she would respond to those who say that, unlike the 1991 Gulf War, this campaign “looks like mostly an Anglo-American mission.” She answers: “We are now dealing with a threat, I think, that is probably harder for some to understand because it is a threat of the future, rather than a present threat, or a present act such as a border crossing, a border aggression. And here, as the president described in his statement yesterday, we are concerned about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s ability to have, develop, deploy weapons of mass destruction and the threat that that poses to the neighbors, to the stability of the Middle East, and therefore, ultimately to ourselves.”

There are, of course, no real nuclear, chemical and biological weapons left, but then the actual targets of Desert Fox strikes are security-related facilities associated with Saddam’s presidential guards—with the hope that their destruction might provoke a coup or uprising. Inspectors don’t return to Iraq until 2003, in an eleventh hour effort to stave off the second Gulf War.