webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2011
All rights reserved
From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Thu Jan 27 2011 - 00:26:05 EST
Accused Arms Dealer Linked to Kremlin, Hizballah, al-Shabaab
* by IPT News • Jan 21, 2011 at 5:32 pm*
*
http://www.investigativeproject.org/2516/accused-arms-dealer-linked-to-kremlin-hizballah
*
Branded the "Merchant of
Death<http://www.investigativeproject.org/437/merchant-of-death-money-guns-planes-and-the-man-who-makes>,"
former Russian Air Force officer Viktor Bout is
accused<http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/368>of selling arms
to Marxist Colombian terrorists. The BBC
reports <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12208961> that Bout, who has
also been dogged by charges that he provided arms to Angolan rebels and
accused Liberian war criminal Charles
Taylor<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-18/charles-taylor-trial-watching-from-liberia>,
may also have been funneling arms to
Hizballah<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Terrorism/hizattacks1.html>and
the Somali terrorist group
al-Shabaab<http://www.investigativeproject.org/2366/al-shabaab-new-recruitment-video>
.
"The direct accusation is that his planes brought in weapons for al-Shabaab,
which is pretty much top of the wanted list in terms of terrorist activity
and Islamic militant activity in Somalia," said Alex Yearsley, an
arms-control expert working as a United Nations consultant. There are also
allegations that Bout was negotiating with Hizballah to bring them missiles,
and that Israel was so concerned that it tried to "take him out" years ago,
Yearsley said.
"When he was working in Iran in 2005 and when he appears in Beirut in 2006
with the Hizballah-Israel war - when Russia was supplying a great deal of
weapons through Iran, which ended up in Russian hands - at that point, he
was very useful to them and he was working on behalf of the Russian state,"
said journalist Douglas Farah, author of *Merchant of
Death<http://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Death-Money-Planes-Possible/dp/0470048662>
*, a book about Bout.
A Kremlin source told the BBC that Bout had "close relations with officials
in the Kremlin" including people who worked in the office of Russian
presidents Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin.
Bout was arrested in 2008 in a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting
operation in Bangkok. He is accused of offering to provide surface-to-air
missiles to DEA agents posing as Marxist rebels from Colombia. Bout was
allegedly told that American nationals could be targeted with those weapons,
but stated that "We're together, we have the same enemy." Extradited from
Thailand to the United States in November, he faces a life sentence if
convicted on the arms-trafficking charges.
*Related Topics:* IPT News<http://www.investigativeproject.org/author/IPT+News>
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----