NY Times Russia-Taliban Backpedaling?

 

Three steps forward two-and-a-half back?

 

A spokesman for the Taliban has denied that they accepted Russia-paid bounties to carry out attacks on Americans and other coalition soldiers, saying that the group needed no such encouragement for its operations. But one American official said the focus had been on criminals closely associated with the Taliban.

So not-Taliban-Taliban are the culprits now.

… the Taliban are known to have hired local criminals as freelancers, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the former police chief of the province.

This story gets more full of shit the more you read.

The central claim arrived with zero corroborating evidence that a wire transfer ever even happened.

When you’re talking about Afghan criminal networks with money, the obvious answer is: OPIUM TRAFFICKING. But, that gets no mention in the NY Times, as if there was no opium trafficking in the world’s #1 source for opium.

Suspicions of Russian Bounties Were Bolstered by Data on Financial Transfers

 

Paying Off Nazis

One year after foreign bankrolled extremists violently seized power in Ukraine, the IMF is going to insure they remain in power and that the bankrupt country continues on its same path.

IMF approves $17.5bn bailout package for Ukraine

Mother Jones Spins Ukraine for State Department

US and NATO sponsored uprisings in Ukraine have exploded into violence and arson.  Mother Jones shows its true colors by ignoring the Western covert role in the violence, and the US record in causing mischief across the region.

So-called “alternative media” in the US, connected to shady foundation funding, continually press the empire’s geoppolitical agenda.

Why Kiev Is Burning, Explained

Paul Craig Roberts responds:

As I reported on February 12, “Washington Orchestrated Protests Are Destabilizing Ukraine.” Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a rabid Russophobe and neoconservative warmonger, told the National Press Club last December that the US has “invested” $5 billion in organizing a network to achieve US goals in Ukraine in order to give “Ukraine the future it deserves.” Nuland is the Obama regime official who was caught red-handed naming the members of the Ukrainian government Washington intends to impose on the Ukrainian people once the paid protesters have unseated the current elected and independent government.

US and EU Are Paying Ukrainian Rioters and Protesters

Empire is covert as well as overt.

9/11’s Missing Link

History Commons:

Abdussattar Shaikh

May 14, 1994: Future Hijackers’ Landlord in San Diego Becomes FBI Informant

Abdussattar Shaikh, a San Diego resident, is recruited by a local FBI special agent as an “asset,” or informant. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 260 ] Shaikh will later offer rooms in his house in Lemon Grove, California, to two of the future 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, but it will be unclear how much information he shares about them with his FBI handler, Steven Butler (see May 10-Mid-December 2000). Despite much scrutiny after 9/11, little information will emerge on Shaikh’s background or why he came to the FBI’s notice. Shaikh was born in India and came to the US in 1959. [New York Times, 10/24/2001] He became a US citizen in 1976. [9/11 Commission, 4/23/2004] Presumably, he is of interest to the FBI because he is a member of the local Muslim community. A report by the Justice Department’s inspector general will say: “The FBI had interviewed the asset in connection with a bombing investigation several years before.… Initially the asset was not paid. In July 2003, the asset was given a $100,000 payment and closed as an asset.” The report will provide little additional information as to Shaikh’s activities on behalf of the FBI. [US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 260 ] It is also not entirely clear how Shaikh makes a living. Press reports after 9/11, including a report in a local magazine to which he gave a rare interview, will describe him as as retired professor of English at San Diego State University. [San Diego Magazine, 2/2002] Another profile will not identify which institutions he is affiliated with, and describes him as primarily an English as a second language teacher to Saudi military officers and their families. [New York Times, 10/24/2001]

Entity Tags: Abdussattar Shaikh, Steven Butler, Federal Bureau of Investigation

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