September 26, 2001

This Date's Issues:   5460 • 5461

Johnson's Russia List
#5461
26 September 2001
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: U.S. boosts Putin, backs offer of Chechen talks.
2. The Guardian (UK): John Hooper and Kevin O'Flynn, Russia exploits the war dividend. Diplomacy EU urged to soften criticism of Chechen war.
3. AP: Fighting Continues in Chechnya.
4. Washington Post: Sharon LaFraniere, Moscow Eager to Tie Rebels In Chechnya to Bin Laden.
5. Reuters: Central Asia's Great Game turned on its head.
6. Interfax: PUTIN AIDE SAYS 2002 BUDGET NOT INSURED AGAINST DOMESTIC,
FOREIGN RISKS. (Illarionov)
7. Reuters: Russia says no debt talks despite oil price fall.
8. The Guardian (UK): Jonathan Eyal, Pitfalls for Moscow in new pact.
9. Novaya Gazeta: Yulia Latynina, AMERICA WILL FALL FLAT ON ITS FACE IN AFGHANISTAN. Will China win America's war against terrorism?
10. Reuters: Russian memo lists bin Laden camps in Afghanistan.
11. Wall Street Journal: Guy Chazan and Steve Levine, Russia's Decision Represents Shift In a Long-Time Struggle With U.S.
12. AP: George Gedda, Good Guys Vs. Bad Guys All Over Again.]

********

#1
U.S. boosts Putin, backs offer of Chechen talks
By Elaine Monaghan

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The United States gave credence on Tuesday
to the Kremlin leader's offer of peace talks with Chechen rebels and urged
them to break ties with international terrorism.

The diplomatic breakthrough comes at a time when U.S. President George W.
Bush's administration is seeking help from from Russia for his "war on
terrorism" after suicide hijack attacks in the U.S. two weeks ago left
nearly 7,000 people reported missing or dead.

"We believe that (Russian) President Putin made a sincere proposal to the
Chechen side and hope that Mr (Aslan) Maskhadov's quick response indicates
his sincere commitment to work towards a lasting peace in the Caucasus as
well," a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of
anonymity.

He cited reports Chechen rebel leader Maskhadov had accepted Putin's offer
of talks Monday in what he called "the first positive development in this
conflict in many months".

"At the same time the Chechen side must immediately and unconditionally end
its associations with those tied to the international terrorism network,"
the official said.

He also said Putin was the first to call Bush after the Sept. 11 incident
in which hijackers seized four commercial airliners, slammed two into the
World Trade Center in New York and another into the Pentagon near
Washington. The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

UNDERSTANDING FOR MOSCOW

The United States has long slammed Moscow for its campaign in Chechnya and
repeatedly urged it to investigate what it has called credible reports of
atrocities by Russian forces fighting Muslim separatists in Chechnya.

But its 2000 report on terrorism dropped the previous year's references to
Chechen fighters connected to Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, who U.S.
officials say was the mastermind behind the suicide hijack attacks.

A State Department report says bin Laden's network has a global reach and
may include hundreds or thousands of followers.

Secretary of State Colin Powell or his spokesman have expressed
understanding for Moscow's fight against separatists in the unruly Russian
region, while maintaining support for political dialogue and investigations
of human rights abuses.

"We still have a commitment to human rights but we also have a recognition
that the Russians are dealing with a difficult internal problem," Powell
told Reuters in an interview Monday shortly after Putin's speech.

Russian expert Michael McFaul told Reuters he had detected a marked shift
in the U.S. tone since Sept. 11 which he said showed "a new appreciation
for what Russia faces".

Russia blamed Chechen rebels for a series of bombings in 1999 that killed
more than 300 people, including attacks that destroyed Moscow apartment
blocks and one which killed 94 people on Sept. 9. A second attack four days
later killed 118 people.

There have also been reports that a Chechen rebel commander, Habib Abdel
Rahman Khatab, was a bin Laden protege. They both reportedly fought Soviet
forces in Afghanistan.

FUNDAMENTAL BREAK

McFaul said he believed Putin deserved a counter-offer after his televised
speech in which he said Moscow would step up arms supplies to opponents of
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban.

Though Putin kept his options open and ruled out direct Russian military
involvement, he indicated Moscow would not stop Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and
other Russian allies in Central Asia allowing aerodromes to be used for
humanitarian flights.

McFaul said he had spoken to top Russian liberal politician Boris Nemtsov,
whose call for peace talks Sept. 7 was squashed by Putin with the words
that "odious bandits, up to their elbows in the Russian people's blood"
should surrender first.

McFaul said Nemtsov had been "quite nervous" about the speech in which he
said Putin risked the wrath of military hawks by giving the Central Asian
states a green light.

"Nemtsov said that the United States has to understand what a fundamental
break with previous foreign policy Putin's statement was," said McFaul.

He said Washington should offer tangible rewards for example by relaxing
trade restrictions or encouraging Russian membership of the World Trade
Organization.

He said the last time a U.S. administration official had referred openly to
links between bin Laden and Chechnya was in November 1999, when Ambassador
Steven Sestanovich, the top State Department official on former Soviet
states under Clinton, addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"Chechen insurgents are receiving help from radical groups in other
countries, including Osama bin Laden's network and others who have attacked
or threatened Americans and American interests," Sestanovich had said.

McFaul said the United States had something to learn from the Russian
campaign that has dragged on with interruptions since 1994 and killed
thousands of civilians -- "how not to fight a war against terrorism."

********

#2
The Guardian (UK)
26 September 2001
Russia exploits the war dividend
Diplomacy EU urged to soften criticism of Chechen war
John Hooper in Berlin and Kevin O'Flynn in Moscow

Russia's president Vladimir Putin yesterday reaped the first rewards from his
policy of supporting the international campaign against terrorism, when
Germany's chancellor Gerhard Schröder called for the west to modify its
stance on Moscow's battle with Islamist separatists in Chechnya.

Mr Schröder called for a "new evaluation" of Russia's seven-year battle with
the rebels. "As regards Chechnya, there will be and must be a more
differentiated evaluation in world opinion," he told a joint press conference
at the start of the Russian president's visit to Germany - his first to a
Nato state since the attacks on the US.

The chancellor's comments marked a distinct softening of tone. The EU has
been sharply critical of the indiscriminate bombing, allegations of torture,
and wholesale abuse of human rights in Russia's attempt to suppress
separatist Chechen fighters. At one point Russia was threatened with
expulsion from the Council of Europe, of which it is a member.

Mr Schröder was speaking after Monday's announcement that Russia would help
arm Afghanistan's Northern Alliance opposition and allow US planes to use its
air space for humanitarian aid. A Kremlin spokesman yesterday stripped some
of the significance from the move, saying it would mean formerly covert aid
for the alliance would now become overt.

But Mr Putin yesterday used a speech to the Bündestag, the lower house of the
German parliament, to cast his nation in a new light as a valuable ally of
the west.

Mr Putin insisted that years of armed rebellion in Chechnya should have
served as a warning of the threat of Islamic extremism. He accused the west
of being stuck in cold war categories of conflict and complained it remains
wary of Russia. "Meanwhile, we don't recognise the real dangers," he said.

Ovation

"Today we must firmly declare: The cold war is over," Mr Putin said. "The
world is in a new stage of development."

He also highlighted his view that Russia is as much at risk as any nation
from Islamist violence. "International terrorists made clear their wish to
set up a fundamentalist Muslim state between the Caspian sea and the Black
sea," he said.

Mr Putin delivered his parliamentary address in fluent German, which he
learned as a KGB officer in Dresden. His audience, including the former
chancellor Helmut Kohl, gave him a standing ovation after the half-hour
speech.

On Monday, Mr Putin said Russia would increase arms supplies to the Northern
Alliance and open up Russian air corridors for humanitarian aid if the
anti-terrorist operation begins in Afghanistan.

Russia would also provide "active intelligence" on terrorists and the
whereabouts of their bases and also gave its tacit agreement for the US to
use airbases in central Asia. Russia's search and rescue capabilities were
also offered to the US.

Russian troops though, Mr Putin confirmed, would not return to the country
where they suffered their greatest defeat.

Mr Putin's support for George Bush marks the closest military cooperation
since the end of the cold war, although it has roused the ire of Russia's top
generals. Much of the Russian political elite still remains suspicious of the
US, and all too aware of the dangers of letting it conduct a military
operation from within Russia's sphere of influence. Others simply fear that
Russia will be a prime target for Islamic extremists if it becomes involved
in yet another war like Chechnya.

Many analysts agreed the Russian president would have only further isolated
his country by refusing to join the international anti-terrorist coalition.
As the most popular Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda dramatically put it
yesterday: "This is just like the anti-Hitler coalition; Moscow has no
alternative but to join it."

The change in attitude has been swift. Last week the Russian defence minister
Sergei Ivanov said that Nato troops would never be based on former Soviet
soil. But yesterday he was forced to concede that the airport in Tajikistan's
capital Dushanbe could be used by US troops.

Russia has recently been supporting the Northern Alliance, many of whom
fought against the Soviet Union as mojahedin during the disastrous 10 year
campaign. Russia has also been propping up Tajikistan in a bitter border war
with the Tal iban. "We consider Russia a good friend and we hope that she
won't refuse us anything," said the deputy defence minister of the Northern
Alliance in an interview with Rossiskaya Gazeta yesterday.

As the Guardian reported, US aircraft landed in Uzbekistan last week and a
few hours before Mr Putin's speech, the president of neighbouring Kazakhstan,
Nursaltan Nazarbeyev offered his country's airbases to the US.

Mr Putin has also announced a 72-hour deadline for the Chechen rebels to
begin discussing disarmament with Russian officials and end all contacts with
international terrorists. Kommersant newspaper dismissed the offer as
"meaningless" and Ruslan Aushev, president of the neighbouring republic of
Ingushetia, said it would lead to worsening relations with Chechnya.

Fiercely criticised in the past for the brutal way the Russian army has
fought in Chechnya, Mr Putin now expects a free hand and hinted that Russia's
continuing help will depend on that.

"The depth and quality of this cooperation will be dependent on the level and
quality of our relations with these [partner] countries and on mutual
understanding in the battle with international terrorism," he said.

Ari Fleischer, a White House spokesman, said Washington would not refrain
from criticising Russia over Chechnya. "On Chechnya, the principles of
adherence to human rights is always important," he said. He added that the
"threat of terrorism is a threat Russia faces as well. We're always mindful
of combating terrorism in a way that is consistent with concern about human
rights."

*******

#3
Fighting Continues in Chechnya
September 26, 2001
By YURI BAGROV

NAZRAN, Russia (AP) - President Vladimir Putin's 72-hour offer for Chechen
rebels to discuss terms for laying down their arms entered its second day
Wednesday, but no rebel leaders have come out for talks yet and fighting
continued in the breakaway region.

Chechnya's rebel leader, Aslan Maskhadov, on Tuesday welcomed the Kremlin
offer as a ``real chance to start talks on the quick cessation of military
actions'' and appointed Akhmed Zakayev, deputy premier in the rebel
government, as his envoy at peace talks.

However, there was no immediate information about Zakayev approaching the
federal authorities, and Putin's envoy for talks with rebels, Viktor
Kazantsev, has so far stayed out of Chechnya.

Kazantsev said Tuesday that working groups had already been set up for
contacts with rebels in Chechnya and surrounding regions. However, no reports
have come on any Chechen warlords launching peace talks and the Russian
Interior Ministry's department in Chechnya said no rebels have laid down
their weapons yet, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Kazantsev, who spoke to regional officials and the media Tuesday, said the
time limit for launching talks was ``tight but sufficient'' and added that
the rebels who wouldn't come out would be destroyed.

Kazantsev's deputy Nikolai Britvin said Moscow could offer security guards to
those rebel warlords who would agree to surrender, ITAR-Tass said.

While no peace talks were immediately visible, fighting continued throughout
Chechnya.

Russian Interior Ministry outposts in Chechnya have been shelled by rebels 10
times over the last 24 hours, and one serviceman was wounded. Russian
helicopter gunships have continued to pound suspected rebel hide-outs, and
federal troops claimed that 14 rebels had been killed over the past 24 hours,
ITAR-Tass said.

Maskhadov played a key role in defeating the Russian troops and negotiating
the end to the 1994-96 Chechnya war, but his authority over the rebels has
waned.

Putin in the past has repeatedly rejected Western demands to start talks with
rebels, saying they must be eliminated. Earlier this month, Putin said for
the first time that Russia might talk to the rebels, but only if they first
lay down their arms and hand over their leaders. He softened his stance in
the 72-hour peace offer which set no preconditions for talks on disarmament.

In Monday's televised address, Putin also urged Chechen rebels to ``halt all
contacts with international terrorists,'' a reference to Russia's claim that
they are linked to Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11
terror attack on the United States.

U.S. officials have welcomed Putin's peace offer as a positive step toward
ending the 2-year-old war.

*******

#4
Washington Post
September 26, 2001
Moscow Eager to Tie Rebels In Chechnya to Bin Laden
By Sharon LaFraniere
Washington Post Foreign Service

MOSCOW -- Two years ago, in the green hills of Chechnya near an old Soviet
children's camp, 24-year-old Zamir Ozrokov studied what was described to him
as pure Islam.

The Koran readings came with an unusual military twist. An Arab instructor
taught him and about 100 other youths how to assemble and take apart AK-47
assault rifles, how to shoot and how to lay mines. After three weeks, he
returned to the neighboring Russian republic of Karbardino-Balkaria, where he
was later arrested and told his story to the police.

The camp in Serzhen-Yurt no longer exists, but Ozrokov's account of his May
1999 stay there, published in his republic's newspaper, is one small sign of
the role of radical Islamic groups in the bloodshed that has reduced much of
the southern Russian republic of Chechnya to abandoned ruins.

The camp was run by a man known as Khattab, a mysterious Arab in his
mid-thirties who emerged several years ago as one of Chechnya's most powerful
rebel commanders. Russian intelligence and military officials identify him as
the main link between the Chechen rebels and Osama bin Laden's
Afghanistan-based terrorist organization.

The strength of that link is in dispute. Sergei Yastrzhembsky, a spokesman
for President Vladimir Putin, said in an interview last week that bin Laden
is by no means the only foreign backer of Chechen rebels, and maybe not even
the main one. "But he is a real sponsor," he said. "That is a fact."

At least it is a fact to Russian officials, who are eager to tie Chechnya's
stubborn revolt to an international terrorist conspiracy, and so win sympathy
among critics of Moscow's merciless prosecution of the war there.

In an address to the German parliament in Berlin yesterday, Putin said Russia
was committed to the "complete ideological and political isolation" of
terrorists and he called the war in Chechnya a harbinger of what the West now
faces.

He warned that "international terrorists [have] made clear their wish to set
up a fundamentalist Muslim state between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea."

"We don't recognize the real dangers," said Putin, the first Russian
president to address the Bundestag.

"This shows that we are well-advised to work with Russia as a partner in
combating worldwide threats," said Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. "That wasn't
so clear everywhere. Now it is."

But proof of bin Laden's involvement is hard to come by, and some more
dispassionate experts are far less certain of it. "I think it's a kind of
misinformation sent to the mass media by Russian secret services to make it
seem they are not fighting a small separatist movement, but against the
world's radical Islamic community," said Alexei Malashenko, an expert on
Chechnya at the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow Center.

The guerrillas deny any ties. "When I hear that the Taliban fights in
Chechnya . . . this sounds stupid," said Aslan Maskhadov, Chechnya's former
president and now the leader of a key rebel faction, referring to
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia in an interview transmitted through an
intermediary.

"Why do we need weapons from abroad? There are plenty of weapons here, and
much cheaper too. We don't need military or other training from abroad
either."

What is apparent, however, is that Islamic extremists have taken partial
command of the Chechen revolt since 1996, and many have come from Arab
countries, flush with money, weapons and four-wheel drive vehicles that the
impoverished region's indigenous guerrillas could only dream of.

Estimates of bin Laden's influence over Chechen rebels range from simple
moral exhortation to providing squadrons of guerrilla fighters and millions
of dollars. Russian intelligence officials, citing intercepted radio
conversations, insist bin Laden plays a key role in the ongoing military
conflict.

Russian Interpol chief Vladimir Gordiyenko asserts that bin Laden maintains
"direct contacts" with Khattab and another key commander in Chechnya, Shamil
Basayev.

Intelligence officials in Moscow contend that bin Laden trains Chechen
fighters in a half-dozen military camps in Afghanistan and provided Chechen
fighters with 36 anti-aircraft missiles in 1999. Thirteen months ago, they
have said, he sent $34 million to Khattab. Col. Gen. Valery Manilov, former
first deputy chief of the Russian general staff, later offered a revised
figure of $5.5 million, and said bin Laden promised to train as many as 5,000
fighters.

Many experts on Chechnya believe these are exaggerations -- maybe vast ones.
One recent arrest of a Saudi man identified as a courier for Khattab suggests
much lower sums. The man, nabbed crossing the Azerbaijan border into the
neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan, said he had $10,000 for the rebels.

One former high-ranking Chechen official, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, said that in 1996 he saw two checks totaling $300,000, drawn on a
Malaysian bank, that were funneled to the rebels from a Philippine terrorist
group called Abu Sayyaf -- "Father of the Sword." Abu Sayyaf was founded by a
man who fought with bin Laden against the Soviets in Afghanistan and
supposedly was financed by bin Laden's brother-in-law.

For Russian officials, such information about Chechen rebel connections is
rare.

"It's most difficult to determine connections between Chechens and the
Islamic world," said Nikolai Kovalyov, former head of the Federal Security
Service, the domestic successor agency to the KGB, in a recent interview.
"Even if you capture a person, to extract anything from him is almost
impossible. They prefer death with the head raised high."

Yastrzhembsky said estimates of the number of Arab mercenaries among the
Chechen rebels range from dozens to thousands. The highest government
estimate, he said, puts Arabs as 70 percent of the rebel force. But Chechen
administrators and journalists estimate that Arabs make up no more than 5
percent to 15 percent of Chechen fighters, who are believed to number at
least several thousand.

The Arab fighters, they said, come from many countries, including Syria,
Yemen, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Who dispatched them remains in
question. During an interview a year ago in an Afghan village, a man named
Abu Daud, identified as a bin Laden associate, told the Associated Press that
400 fighters who were trained at bin Laden's camps had been sent to help the
Chechen separatists.

Islamic extremists figured hardly at all in Chechnya's first war for
independence from Russia, from 1994 to 1996. That was clearly a nationalist
movement.

But when that war ended with no clear winner, Chechnya lay in ruins,
presenting fertile ground for Islamic militants. Urus-Martan, Chechnya's
third biggest city with about 100,000 people, became their base, and Khattab
their military leader.

Shervanik Yasuyev, the pro-Russian Chechen administrator of the city, said in
an interview that Arab "strangers, all strangers," began arriving one by one
in 1997, until they numbered 500 or more. They were bearded, wore green or
black shirts and longrobes over their pants, and were armed with expensive
pistols, according to Yasuyev and other residents.

They were known as Wahhabists, a fundamentalist branch of Islam that is
dominant in Saudi Arabia, although they came from all over the Middle East.

"They went to the market and they paid with dollars," said Yasuyev. "There
was no power here; there was disorder everywhere, and their influence was
very strong."

Their professed goal was to turn Chechnya into an Islamic state. Freeing
Chechnya's Muslims from the Russian yoke was deemed a worthy first step.

The Arabs appealed especially to the young men of Urus-Martan. "The poor
Chechen people were already suffering so much and our young guys simply
couldn't think," Yasuyev said. "They were ready to accept any ideas."

The Arabs augmented their influence by forming an alliance with Basayev, a
powerful rival rebel commander.

The Wahhabists recruited young men from Urus-Martan to undergo three months
of military and religious training at the Serzhen-Yurt camp, about 24 miles
outside the city. Khattab visited them there.

Khattab, fluent in Russian, is often described as coming from Jordan, where
he studied to be a physicist. But Yastrzhembsky said he came from Saudi
Arabia, trained in bin Laden's Afghan camps and fought against the Soviets
during their disastrous war there.

He is now believed to be hiding in Chechnya's southern mountains with the
other rebels.

*******

#5
ANALYSIS-Central Asia's Great Game turned on its head
September 25, 2001
By Tom Heneghan

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Great Game, the fabled race for power and
influence in Central Asia, has been turned on its head by the U.S.-led "war
on terror" that is rallying the whole world against Afghanistan.

For centuries, the wild country astride the towering Hindu Kush mountains
has stood as a buffer between Russia to the north and British and later
American power to the south.

Rival empires wooed its proud tribes in vain.

Now for the first time in its history, Kabul faces enemies wherever it
looks. The United States, Russia, Britain, China, Iran, Pakistan and India
-- they all want the hard-line Taliban regime out and hope a stable
government can be put in.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's historic decision on Monday to back the
U.S.-led campaign and supply arms to Moscow's one-time enemies who are now
fighting the Taliban has closed the book on the old Great Game.

Central Asia is still a chessboard, with many national interests at play,
but the pieces are no longer colored only black and white and the alliances
no longer exclusive.

"It changes the geopolitical situation," said Clifford Beal, editor of
Jane's Defense Review in London. "It is certainly something none of us
could have anticipated some weeks ago."

"There is a convergence of interests among the old players of the Great
Game and the United States," said Bharat Karnad, a professor at the New
Delhi-based Center for Policy Research.

"The game now is to ensure whoever rules Afghanistan does not become a
danger to the rest of the region and the world.

"It is both in the United States' and Russia's interests that the source of
danger to their countries and other nations -- which is the Taliban regime
-- is removed."

"WHO CONTROLS CENTRAL ASIA CONTROLS THE WORLD"

Conquering the khanates of Central Asia became a security priority for
Russia as early as the 16th century, when Ivan the Terrible seized Kazan
from the Tartars and massacred its people.

By the mid-1800s, Moscow strove to build an empire to extend its might,
spread Orthodox Christianity and gain vast farmlands and cotton fields for
its merchant class.

Fearing the Russians wanted to advance as far as the warm water ports of
British India, London scrambled to check Tsarist expansion. Envoys and
spies fanned out to woo local potentates and railways were built to the
edges of the Raj.

Halford Mackinder, the British founder of geopolitical theory, even saw the
region as the "heartland of history" and argued that "he who controls
Central Asia controls the world."

Competition for Afghanistan was intense, but neither side ever won it over.
A British military force that seized Kabul in 1841 was driven out and
massacred the following year in the first of three Afghan Wars that London
was to fight.

After World War Two, Washington replaced London as the counterpart to
Moscow. The superpowers competed with aid deals for Kabul, with the United
States building highways and a large dam in the south while Moscow
constructed Soviet-style buildings in Kabul and planted orchards around
Jalalabad in the east.

This escalated dramatically in 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan to prop up a struggling pro-Moscow regime, and the United
States -- backed by Pakistan, Arab states and China -- armed the mujahideen
fighting them.

The Russians pulled out in 1989, their first defeat to a Muslim power since
they moved into Central Asia in 1552.

THE GREAT OIL GAME

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Great Oil Game began. Freed
from the Soviet yoke, the new independent states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan looked beyond Moscow for investors in their
vast oil and gas fields.

U.S. companies rushed in, but Washington was against sending the fuels from
the landlocked states in pipelines through Iran.

Since the next best route ran through Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islamabad
and Washington backed the Taliban as they swept to power in 1996 apparently
bringing the stability that foreign investors needed to go ahead with the
deal.

"The Taliban were acceptable at first, but then Osama bin Laden entered the
equation," said retired Pakistani brigadier Shaukat Qadir, referring to the
Saudi-born militant who began training anti-Western guerrillas in the
Afghan hills.

The Taliban outraged the world by barring women from school and work and
destroying the unique Buddha statues at Bamiyan. The Sept. 11 attacks on
the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States brought global
fury down on bin Laden.

Suddenly, there was a consensus about what to do.

"An American military attack is unstoppable," said Zhu Feng of Peking
University's School of International Studies. "There is no option but to
overthrow the Taliban."

While the U.S. now sets the region's agenda and its oil companies could
reap the profits, Washington may not be able to establish the military
presence old Great Game rivals sought.

"They could only stay on very discreetly, out of sight in the desert
somewhere," said Mushahid Hussain, a political analyst and information
minister in Pakistan's last elected government.

SMALL STATES ARE BIG WINNERS

In contrast to the old Great Game, when empires steamrollered the peoples
in their paths, several independent states in the region are emerging as
big winners.

"Pakistan will become more significant, we'll be back on the map," Qadir
said. "If the pipeline comes through here, we'll earn $8 billion in transit
fees and get our oil at half price."

The ex-Soviet republics used the crisis to assert their independence from
Moscow, quickly agreeing to open air corridors and possibly airports to the
United States, something that was unthinkable only two weeks ago.

Once the region's unquestioned master, Moscow found it had little choice
but to agree with the Central Asian states and let U.S. forces into the
region for the first time.

"It hasn't been left much room to maneuver," Qadir said.

Putin is still trying to make the best of Moscow's retreat, likening the
U.S.-led "war on terrorism" to his bloody drive against Chechen separatists
in the hope Western states will finally stop their criticism of the human
rights situation there.

"The Russians are interested in finding support for their policies in
Chechnya and this is as good a time as any to leverage Western support,"
Beal from Jane's Defense Weekly said.

(Additional reporting by Paul Majendie in London, Kamil Zaheer in New Delhi
and Jeremy Page in Beijing)

*******

#6
PUTIN AIDE SAYS 2002 BUDGET NOT INSURED AGAINST DOMESTIC, FOREIGN RISKS

MOSCOW. Sept 25 (Interfax) - Andrei Illarionov, President Vladimir
Putin's economic advisor, believes that the 2002 draft budget adjusted
by the government on Tuesday is not well-enough guaranteed against
domestic and foreign economic and political risks.

"Uncertainties and risks are quite high and the degree of the
budget's safety should be raised to reduce the risks to a minimum," he
told Interfax on Tuesday.

He said that the 2002 budget should be insured against such risks
as a drop in oil prices, a world economic slowdown and negative
situations on currency markets.

In addition to foreseeing a decline in revenues, it should foresee
a rise in spending on international and national security, Illarionov
said.

"This may prove unavoidable, irrespective of the economic
situation," he said.

He said he meant a rise in spending not only on defense, but
probably additional spending on guarding key facilities, including
chemical plants and nuclear power stations.

"The initial budget indicators and the present ones contain certain
risks that may place the execution of next year's budget under very
serous pressure if unlikely, but possible scenarios materialize," he
said.

During the approval of the 2002 budget, greater precautions should
be taken "so that the most serious worsening of the international or
domestic situation would not affect the budget."

"The government has taken certain steps, but they are
insufficient," the aide said.

He compared the situation with the budget's approval to the
destructive flood in Lensk. "It's known that the dam in Lensk was
designed for a water level of two meters, while during the flood the
water level rose to 11 meters. Nothing of the kind had been registered
throughout the history of observations, but such things should be
foreseen," Illarionov said.

In his opinion, the 2002 budget should be less dependent on factors
that are outside the control of the Russian authorities.

In this connection Illarionov stressed the need to form a
stabilization fund. "A step to that end has been taken, but it is
insufficient," he said.

********

#7
Russia says no debt talks despite oil price fall
By Julie Tolkacheva

MOSCOW, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Russia said on Wednesday the recent oil price
fall may mean the 2002 budget was based on overly optimistic forecasts, but
ruled out the need for talks on its huge debt burden.

But analysts warned that 2003 debt payments could be more difficult to
finance because of the new oil price outlook.

Prices for oil, the backbone of Russia's exports and budget revenues,
slumped this week just as the Russian government approved a rise in
expected budget revenues next year of 127 billion roubles ($4.32 billion)
at parliament's request.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told the State Duma, the lower house of
parliament, that the oil price was a worry.

"I cannot rule out that the average 2002 price for oil will be lower than
the one we have based our draft budget on," Kudrin told the Duma, which
will debate the bill on first reading on Friday.

But he added: "Russia is fulfilling all its foreign debt obligations. It is
in the state's interests to be oriented to a full repayment of debt in
2002-2003."

"We are not so far planning restructuring talks with the Paris Club," he
added, referring to the club of creditor nations to which Russia owes $39
billion from its total foreign debt burden of just over $140 billion.

"Russia is a solvent country and will pay its foreign debts in accordance
with the schedule it took upon itself," he added.

On top of financing 2002 spending the government plans to set aside funds
for the 2003 debt peak.

The government has calculated 2002 revenues at an average $22 per barrel of
Urals blend, which Russia mainly exports, while spending was calculated at
$17.

2003 FUND MORE DIFFICULT TO FILL

Alexei Moiseyev, an analyst at Renaissance Capital, said the 2002 budget
would have a surplus if oil stayed above $16 a barrel, although the
government would have to privatise more, and boost borrowing and sales of
state precious metals reserves.

"After the government increased the revenue target and oil prices fell the
quality of the budget fell, it became more dependent on oil prices, on the
possibility to privatise and to borrow," he said.

Moiseyev said the government would have to cut domestic spending and
investment to accumulate the $3 billion it wanted to save for 2003. But
doing so could be difficult because 2003 is an election year for the Duma.

Of Russian officials, only Economy and Trade Minister German Gref has so
far sounded a warning note on 2003. He said during a visit to Germany on
Tuesday that the state could encounter debt repayment problems if gas and
oil prices fell.

(Additional reporting by Ivan Rodin) ($=29.40 roubles)

*******

#8
The Guardian (UK)
26 September 2001
Pitfalls for Moscow in new pact
By Jonathan Eyal
The author is director of studies at the Royal United Services Institute in
London

Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has pledged his full support to President
Bush in the current military crisis, including the use of Russian airspace.

Moscow's backing is clearly appreciated in Washington: quite apart from its
wider political significance, overflight rights and the use of staging posts
in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (with one air base just 12 miles from the Afghan
border) are certainly handy for American military planners.

Ostensibly, the recent chill in relations between the two countries, which
grew worse after Bush's arrival in the White House in January this year, is
now over. Nor is this rapprochement confined to government level alone.
Ordinary Russians, still accustomed to viewing the US as a potential enemy,
have covered the railings of the US embassy in Moscow with flowers in
expressions of sympathy.

But the new Russian-American strategic partnership will remain very shaky
because, as so often in the past, the benefits which the Russians hope for
may not be available, and what the Americans want Moscow probably cannot
deliver.

President Putin was quick to grasp the potential benefits which his country
could derive out of supporting the US. The Russians have fought for years
against what they said was a terrorist threat in Chechnya; within hours of
the attacks on the US, Moscow pointed out that Khattab, the Chechen rebel
chief which Moscow's security services have failed to catch, was allegedly an
"assistant" to Osama bin Laden.

The Russians assume that support for the operation in Afghanistan will earn
them immunity from any criticism about their operations in Chechnya. More
importantly, the Kremlin believes that the terrorist attacks will persuade
Washington to abandon its missile defence programme which, if deployed, could
render Russia's own military obsolete. As the Russians have strenuously
argued, there is little point in spending tens of billions of dollars on a
sophisticated missile system if the threat to the US now comes from small
bands of criminals.

Finally, a renewed Russian-American partnership could obviate the need for
another round of Nato enlargement in central Europe, which the Russians also
oppose.

The snag for Mr Putin was that Russian military commanders strenuously
objected to any cooperation with the US. Immediately after the attacks in New
York and Washington, Russia's defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, and the chief
of general staff, Anatoli Kvashnin, flatly contradicted their president by
ruling out active military cooperation with the US.

The Russian generals' objections are easy to fathom. They believe that, once
the US creates staging bases in central Asian republics, these countries will
escape from Moscow's sphere of influence, just as the central European
countries did when the US military arrived to support operations in the
Balkans. More importantly, the Russian military fears that the US could seek
to impose a puppet regime in Afghanistan at the expense of the Northern
Alliance rebels which Moscow is now promoting.

Having burnt their fingers in Afghanistan, the Russian military is not so
concerned about the country's internal politics.

But the Kremlin suspects that, once a pro-western government is installed in
Afghanistan, the Americans will promote a pipeline to carry Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan oil and gas to Pakistan. Were this to happen without Moscow's
approval, the Russians would effectively be sidelined throughout the region.

For the moment, President Putin appears to have overruled his military. But
he is unlikely to have done so without extracting a heavy price from the
Americans.

Details of Mr Putin's long telephone conversation with President Bush over
the weekend have not been released, yet officials in Washington privately
admit that certain rules have been established.

The most obvious areas of cooperation are actually the least important.
Russia may have some useful intelligence material on Bin Laden, yet this is
unlikely to be more substantial than what the Americans already have: Moscow
is years behind Washington in electronic surveillance techniques and even
worse than the US in penetrating terrorist organisations. Nor are the
Americans interested in Russia's military assistance: the Russian armed
forces are disastrous at pinpoint strikes against guerrillas, precisely the
skills which the US military now needs.

The political price which Moscow demanded in return for its cooperation has
been turned down as well. The US cannot abandon the project of enlarging Nato
because this will create huge difficulties with other European allies. In
addition, the US Congress may well decide to provide money for both a
sustained effort against terrorism and the continuation of the missile
defence programme at the same time.

But the Americans did promise not to establish permanent military bases in
central Asia, and have undertaken to cooperate with the Russians in support
for the Northern Alliance.

There is also an informal agreement between Washington and Moscow that
neither would seek to impose a regime in Afghanistan without further
consultations, and that no oil and gas pipelines would be contemplated
without a further mutual agreement. For the moment, therefore, Moscow and
Washington are in tune.

Yet the military in both countries continues to eye each other nervously; the
slightest mishap could tear the new partnership asunder. The historic record
of both parties in delivering on promises made in the haste of war is not
good.

*******

#9
Novaya Gazeta
No. 69
September 24-26, 2001
AMERICA WILL FALL FLAT ON ITS FACE IN AFGHANISTAN
Will China win America's war against terrorism?
Author: Yulia Latynina
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

THE UNITED STATES HAS REACTED TO THE TERROR ATTACKS IN NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON JUST AS OSAMA BIN LADEN WANTED. NEITHER THE US NOR BIN LADEN'S SUPPORTERS WILL WIN THE WAR. THE WINNERS ARE LIKELY TO BE CHINA, INDIA, SOUTH ASIAN AND ARAB COUNTRIES - AND RUSSIA.

The American public, having watched the CNN mini-series on the
destruction of the World Trade Center with rapt horror, is now
demanding a sequel.

Congress has allocated $40 billion to shoot the next episode.
American aircraft carriers, AWACS planes and rapid response forces
have been supplied for the battle scenes.

The only problem is that the Pentagon scriptwriters have a co-
author: Osama bin Laden. And right now everything is going according
to his plans.

For some reason it seems all commentators are sure that it is now
the Americans' turn to lead. Actually, the destruction of the WTC
towers was bait - and the prey - that is, the average American - has
taken the bait, exactly as expected.

Osama bin Laden is not afraid of war. He hopes for it, because
war is a recruiting campaign for bin Laden's forces, paid for by
American taxpayers' money. Every American missile which kills a
hundred people will create a thousand new fighters.

Right now, bin Laden's Al-Qaida network is made up of fringe-
dwellers, who survive by extracting donations from "true believers"
and drug trafficking. But a couple of thousand American tactical
missiles will turn it into a Pan-Islamic government.

Bin Laden did not want to upset the United States. He wanted to
unite the Islamic world in a struggle against the "infidels".

You can bet that the average American doesn't have the slightest
idea of what they are going to be fighting. Americans are used to
this. If a pipe springs a leak, you call a plumber and he will come
and fix everything. If someone blows up the World Trade Center, you
call the government and they will come and fix everything.

The Afghans have no government. They have the tradition of blood-
feud, just like any society where instability and the threat of death

is too high.
Such social phenomena can be eradicated in America by means of
precision strikes. In Afghanistan, however, strikes against them make
them multiply. It is a fundamentally different social structure.

The American scriptwriters are assuming that in Afghanistan they
will fight with high-tech weaponry. But there is a small weakness in
high-tech weaponry: it is only effective against a high-tech
civilization.

Missiles costing $2 million each do a great job of hitting
command points and presidential palaces; but they are an expensive way
to burn the hair off a camel's hide.

The United States claims it is ready for war. This is a bluff,
and we can prove that. According to preliminary figures, 6,000 people
died in the terrorist attacks. Left behind were at least 16,000 close
relatives - wives, brothers, sons, friends.

We all saw dozens of interviews along the lines of "It was so
terrible!" But I personally did not see a single interview which
ended, "And now I am enlisting in the army and I'm going to crush
those vermin who did this."

Americans do not want war. They want a happy ending.

Clearly, neither of the two sides getting involved in this war
will win it. Osama bin Laden will not win it - because terrorists are
like worms in the gut of modern Western civilization. They use its
Stingers, its civilian airliners, and even its financial institutions
to make money for more terror attacks. (By the way, in this sense the
only precision strike that America can actually carry out is a strike
on bin Laden's bank accounts and on the drug trade.)

The Americans will not win the war, because Tomahawks are no help
in getting rid of intestinal parasites.

The war will be won by a third party. Obviously, this is China:
the future super-power of the 21st century. A country developing
dynamically, without fanaticism, in contrast to bin Laden's followers;
and with a 4,000-year history, in contrast to the US. If anybody does
not know what the world's most commonly spoken language will be 50
years from now, here's the answer: Chinese.

Another probable victor is India. And a number of smaller winners
is lining up alongside the big two, principally from South Asia or the
Arab world, right up to Syria or Iran, if they are able to keep on the
sidelines of the fighting which is being planned.

Among these countries - from China to Iran - there are few
similarities, but there is one common factor. They are all importers
of Russian arms and potential strategic allies of Russia.

And now, as America is preparing to fall flat on its face in
Afghanistan, Russia has a unique opportunity: to stand aside from the
brawling, to shape and provide the technological leadership for an
alliance of cultures to which neither of the warring sides is close.
(Translated by Alexander Mazzucchelli)

*******

#10
Russian memo lists bin Laden camps in Afghanistan
By Tom Heneghan

ISLAMABAD, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden had at
least 55 bases or offices in Afghanistan earlier this year with over 13,000
men, ranging from Arabs and Pakistanis to Chechens and Filipinos, according
to Russian information.

A Russian memo to the United Nations, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday,
reported that in addition to bin Laden's own men, about 3,500
fundamentalist Pakistanis were in the country as well as Pakistani soldiers
and diplomats it said were working as advisers to the hardline Taliban
movement.

The memo to the U.N. Security Council, dated March 9, 2001, said most of
bin Laden's facilities were in or around the main cities of Kabul, southern
Kandahar, eastern Jalalabad and Mazar-i-Sherif in the north.

Most were at former Afghan Army bases, on large former state farms and in
caves in rugged mountain regions. About 150 men are based in Bagh-i-Bala,
the hilltop restaurant that was once Kabul's most fashionable dining spot.

It was not clear whether these facilities, part of bin Laden's al-Qaeda
("the base") network, were all still in use at the time of or after the
September 11 suicide flights into the World Trade Tower and the Pentagon in
the United States.

Washington has named bin Laden as the prime suspect in those attacks and
vowed to capture him "dead or alive" and punish the Taliban for harbouring
him. The Taliban say they have already taken emergency measures to defend
themselves against any U.S. air attack.

A cover note from Moscow's U.N. delegation said the memo responded to a
1999 Security Council appeal for information "on bases and training camps
of international terrorists in Afghanistan" and on foreign advisers to the
Taliban.

Pakistani military spokesmen were not immediately available to comment on
the list, which named 31 Pakistanis -- from generals to diplomats -- it
said were working as advisers in Afghanistan.

Pakistan, the only country in the world that still recognises the Taliban
government, has long been accused of supporting and arming the movement,
but it officially denies any involvement.

LARGE CAMP OUTSIDE KABUL

The memo, obtained from the Philippines Defence Ministry after being cabled
there from Manila's mission to the U.N. in New York, says the focus of bin
Laden's forces is at the former Afghan Army Seventh Division base at
Rishkhor, south of Kabul.

Run by bin Laden's deputy Qari Saifullah Ahtar, it has 7,000 fighters,
including 150 Arabs and some Pakistani fundamentalists, as well as a
Pakistani army regiment, the memo said. A nearby camp has instructors from
Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, it said.

Further south in Charasyab, at a former base for the anti-Soviet
mujahideen, troops included 50 Filipinos and 40 Uighurs from the mainly
Muslim Xinjiang region in western China.

The memo from Russia, which is fighting Muslim separatists in Chechnya,
reported that at least 2,560 Chechens were serving or training with the bin
Laden organisation.

An unknown number of Czechs and Bulgarians were reported to be active at a
well-defended base in Logar province south of Kabul.

Kandahar, the southern city that is spiritual centre for the puritanical
Taliban, was mentioned six times in the report, but without any major
military installations.

In the eastern region around Jalalabad, bin Laden units were based in the
city, in two large Soviet-built state farms nearby and at former army posts
close to the Pakistani frontier.

PAKISTANI INVOLVEMENT

Of the 19 camps said to be run by Pakistani fundamentalists, the memo named
three militant groups active near Kabul. It did not identify who ran the
other camps.

Several Pakistani groups have mobilised students at religious schools to go
and fight in Afghanistan.

The memo said six Pakistanis had senior posts in the Taliban military and
identified a former royal palace in southwestern Kabul as "headquarters of
the commander-in-chief of the Pakistani forces in Afghanistan."

It said a Pakistani AWACS reconnaissance plane, of the type originally
provided by the United States to monitor Soviet and Afghan air activity
during the 1980s war, was based at Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan
to survey the borders with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The memo did not reveal the soure of the information.

Moscow had close ties with Afghanistan's Khad intelligence service during
the 1979-1989 Soviet War and trained thousands of Afghan leftists at
universities in the Soviet Union during that time.

(Additional reporting by Ruben Alabastro in Manila)

*******

#11
Wall Street Journal
September 26, 2001
[for personal use only]
Russia's Decision Represents Shift In a Long-Time Struggle With U.S.
By GUY CHAZAN and STEVE LEVINE
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

MOSCOW -- Russia's decision to allow the deployment of U.S. troops and
aircraft in former Soviet Central Asia represents a huge shift in a more than
seven-year struggle between Moscow and Washington D.C. for ascendancy in the
oil-rich region, once jealously guarded by Russia as its own sphere of
influence.

But by backing the U.S.-led campaign, Russian President Vladimir Putin stands
to reap substantial diplomatic dividends. Foreign policy analysts in Moscow
say the West may now be encouraged to see Russia as an ally in a new kind of
war, rather than a former Cold War adversary that's still barely trusted.

Possible military strikes on Afghanistan could also bring Russia tangible
security benefits by destroying the threat posed to its vulnerable southern
flank by the Taliban, military observers say. Russia hopes the anti-terrorist
campaign could also silence criticism of its war in Chechnya, where its
forces have faced widespread accusations of brutality from Western
governments.

Aftermath of Terror: See full coverage

In a speech to the German Parliament on Tuesday, Mr. Putin said the world
must move beyond obsolete Soviet-era clichés to face the new threats to its
security. "We got so used to living in two opposing systems," he said. "The
world has become much, much more complicated."

The Russian concession also marks a watershed for U.S. policy in the region.
Since 1994, Washington has been trying to turn Central Asia and the Caucasus
into an independent, pro-Western swath of territory between Russia and Iran.
Central to that policy has been a U.S.-advocated oil export pipeline linking
the Caspian and Mediterranean Seas.

Moscow has just as energetically resisted the advance of U.S. influence into
an area it considers its own backyard, and punished states economically and
militarily for going their own way. Independent-minded Georgia lost the Black
Sea region of Abkhazia in a 1993 separatist war thought to be backed by
Moscow.

Today, although Russia seems to be yielding to the prospect of the
U.S.-backed pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey's port of Ceyhan, analysts say
that earlier they couldn't have imagined Moscow agreeing to a U.S. military
deployment in the region.

In a televised address to the nation Monday evening, Mr. Putin said Russia
would open up its airspace to U.S. humanitarian flights, take part in
search-and-rescue operations and supply arms to anti-Taliban forces in
northern Afghanistan. He also said Russia had no objection to Central Asian
states allowing U.S. planes onto their airfields.

The move paved the way for U.S. troops to be stationed on former Soviet
territory for the first time. It came just 10 days after Mr. Putin's defense
minister, Sergei Ivanov, declared there was not even a "hypothetical"
possibility that NATO operations could be launched from former Soviet Central
Asia.

"Putin sees the anti-terrorist action as a historic chance for Russia to
enter the civilized world," said Igor Bunin, head of the Center for Political
Technologies, a Moscow think tank.

But some commentators said Mr. Putin was simply bowing to the inevitable. The
U.S. has already flown at least two military cargo missions into neighboring
Uzbekistan, and in recent days, a number of Central Asian states have
expressed their willingness to cooperate with the U.S. On Monday, Kazakhstan
President Nursultan Nazarbayev said the U.S. could use his nation's airports,
military bases and air space, though he said no request for help had so far
been received.

Pentagon officials say they want to station special forces and AC-130 combat
planes in Uzbekistan, military medical and recovery teams in Tajikistan and
use the entire region's airspace for military jet overflights.

"How things have changed," said Robert Ebel, director of energy and national
security at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International
Studies. "It's a good time for the Central Asian states to demonstrate their
independence."

But some analysts said Russia had merely realized its concerns about
terrorism outweighed fears of a loss of influence in the region. "I see a
reflection of a superior Russian priority -- dealing with terrorism and
radicalism in places like Afghanistan," says Leon Feurth, who as chief
foreign policy adviser to former Vice President Al Gore was a key player in
U.S. policy in the Caspian region.

Mr. Putin hinted that in exchange for its backing, the West should see
Russia's campaign in Chechnya as part and parcel of the "struggle against
international terrorism." He combined his offer of support with an ultimatum
to the Chechen rebels, giving them 72 hours to contact his representatives in
the region to discuss laying down their arms.

Russia has repeatedly argued that it is fighting Islamic extremists trained
and financed by Osama bin Laden in Chechnya. That view appeared to be
supported by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who after talks with Mr.
Putin said world opinion on Chechnya should be re-evaluated.

Russia's backing of the U.S. action was welcomed by pro-Western liberals in
Moscow who have long hoped for a thaw in an East-West relationship strained
by the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, Russian concern at NATO expansion
and American plans to build a national missile defense over Moscow's
objections.

But some nationalists expressed irritation that Russia appeared to have
received nothing in return. "For the first time ever, U.S. planes will now be
making regular flights over former Soviet territory," said Alexei Mitrofanov,
a leader of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party. "The question is: what
did Putin get in exchange? If nothing, then it was a big mistake."

Write to Guy Chazan at guy.chazan@wsj.com and Steve LeVine at
steve.levine@wsj.com

******

#12
Good Guys Vs. Bad Guys All Over Again
September 26, 2001
By GEORGE GEDDA

WASHINGTON (AP) - During the Cold War, the world was divided largely into two
camps: NATO and the Warsaw Pact, with everybody else tilting one way or the
other or staying assiduously nonaligned.

It was a grim time. People worried about nuclear war. It lasted 45 years.

But amid the threats, there were summits. There were weapons buildups but
there were also negotiations to promote disarmament. If things got tense, the
White House had the address and phone number of the Kremlin and vice versa.

Now, almost a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union and, with it, the
demise of the Cold War, the good-guy-vs.-bad-guy syndrome has resurfaced,
partly as an outgrowth of the terrorist devastation in New York and
Washington two weeks ago.

The new alignment features governments opposed in varying degrees to
terrorism on one side. On the other are terrorist groups and regimes that
support them.

``Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,'' President Bush
told the world last week. The U.S. administration, much as it was during the
Cold War, is in the market for allies and an impressive number of countries
have pledged support for a crackdown on terrorism, in South Asia and
elsewhere.

One big difference between the current and Cold War-era security threats is
that today's chief enemy, at least immediately, is not a nation or an
adversary alliance but a single individual, Osama bin Laden, and a network of
supporters believed to be operating in about 60 countries.

Beyond that organization, Bush is pledged to root out all terrorism with a
worldwide reach.

Secretary of State Colin Powell believes that bin Laden is in Afghanistan
under protection of the Taliban militia but is not sure. Unlike Soviet
Communist Party general secretaries, the Saudi-born reputed terror kingpin
has no fixed address. A summit meeting with a man accused of masterminding
the murders of thousands of American civilians is out of the question.

In the Cold War, containing the enemy was the problem, not finding him. The
task nowadays not only is locating bin Laden but acting in the meantime to
ensure that no more commercial airplanes are used as weapons of mass murder,
as they were in New York and at the Pentagon.

The anti-terror war, much like the Cold War, is multifaceted. ``It is not
just a war in the sense of a military conflict; it is a campaign that is
financial, political, diplomatic (and) public diplomacy,'' Powell says.
Another part of the campaign is what he likes to call ``ripping up'' the
terrorist infrastructure.

During the Cold War, the United States offered all sorts of inducements to
persuade countries to oppose the Soviets. If it meant support for corrupt
dictatorships, so be it. Zaire under anti-communist President Mobutu Sese
Seko received millions of dollars in aid. When the Cold War ended, aid dried
up. Mobutu was deposed in time.

Now America's favorite dictatorship is Pakistan, seen here as a crucial
stepping stone in the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants in neighboring
Afghanistan. The administration has put on the back burner misgivings about
Pakistan's undemocratic rule and its nuclear weapons program.

Decades ago, Romania was part of the Soviet bloc but was Moscow's least
reliable ally, sometimes siding with the West on key international issues. No
doubt some countries will sign up eagerly in the anti-terrorism coalition
Bush is creating but will cooperate only to the extent local and regional
politics permit.

Helmut Sonnenfeldt, of the Brookings Institution, notes that Iran has opposed
the Taliban for years and may be a useful partner in U.S. efforts there. But
once the coalition takes on Middle East terrorism, he predicts Iran will
become a dropout because that fight is not on Tehran's agenda.

``People in the administration realize that not everybody in the coalition
will be able to do everything the coalition wants when it wants it,''
Sonnenfeldt says.

EDITOR'S NOTE - George Gedda has covered foreign affairs for The Associated
Press since 1968.

*******

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