CIA Covert Wars in the Islamic World

The below, cut and pasted, [from here]

by Sajjad Shaukat

John Stockwell, ex-CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, also worked for the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under George Bush (Senior) spent 13 years in the agency. He testified before the Congress that during the Cold War era, over 6 million people have died in the CIA covert wars.

After the September 11 tragedy in the US homeland, although a number of Islamic countries such as Indonesia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Pakistan and almost all the Gulf states joined the Bush anti-terrorism war, yet they became target of the CIA covert wars. In this respect, in words, President Bush repeatedly said that his ‘different war’, is not against the Muslim countries, but in practice, only Islamic countries were targeted under the pretext of terrorism or Al Qaeda which became a scapegoat of American secret designs which are being fulfilled by the clandestine techniques of CIA.

CIA agents are present in all the Islamic countries, implementing various tactics of psychological warfare. Its operations are conducted with great professional skill which include the establishment of a huge network inside the target country. It has used propaganda, political dissent, ethnic divisions, sectarian violence, economic backwardness and criminal elements to foment subversion to weaken the related Muslim states in conssonance with American ambitions. However, application of these nefarios designs vary from country to country as CIA incursion in these countries prove.

Assassination of political figures and innocent persons in the Islamic countries is the key aim of this agency. In this connection, Ramzi Yousaf who was well-aware of the activities of the American and Israeli secret agencies had stated in the US court in 1997, “You are butchers, liars, and hypocrites. You keep on talking about terrorism to the media, but behind closed doors you support terrorism”.

Besides, disinformation is also one of the tactics of this rogue intelligence agency. For instance, before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a deliberate disinformation campaign was launched by the CIA all over the world that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMDs). In that respect, a self-fabricated report was prepared about Iraq. Afterwards, Iraq was attacked and occupied by the Anglo-American forces, but no WMDs were found. In fact, main aim of Washington was to occupy the oil resouces of that country.

While confirming US Central Intelligence Agency’s expanding operations, Jeremy Scahill’s report, published in a daily revealed that since the 2006 US-led Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, the CIA maintains a growing security complex in the country, located right behind Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport. The complex contains over a dozen buildings as well as several metal hangars, which house CIA aircraft. Now a new report by United Press International claims that the clandestine American campaign in the horn of Africa “appears to be growing daily”, and that the CIA complex contains a prison for the suspected militants who are routinely interrogated and tortured by the members of a Mogadishu-based CIA team. Scahill also discloses that the growing CIA presence there is part of a wider expansion of America’s campaign in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Indonesia, Somalia etc. For this purpose, the Somali government is using American financial aid to hire European private security firms. The mission there is also to train Kenyan and Ugandan troops for special operations including sabotage and assassinations.

Since 9/11, under the pretext of terrorism, American CIA in collusion with Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad tortured the Muslims in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graid and other cells through brutal tactics which killed majority of the innocent civilians.

As regards the CIA role to exploit the Iranian election protests in 2009, its programme involved playing the media as well as having secret agents on the ground in Iran. In this regard, in May 2007, ABC News reported that the CIA had received secret presidential (Bush) approval to mount a covert “black” operation to destabilise Iranian government.

Starting from Iran, protests and armd clashes inspired by the CIA resulted in revolt in Tunisia, expanding uprising and demonstrations to Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, Syria and Libya.

On May 20, 2011, The Guardian indicated, “US President Obama placed Washington on the side of popular uprisings not only in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya but also in Syria and Bahrain—a longtime American ally.” It wrote, “President unveils shift in US policy towards Arab countries—tells Syria’s Assad to get out of way.” On March 31, 2011, the Guardian revealed that the President Obama had signed a secret order authorising covert help to arm Lybian rebels. The New York Times reported that the CIA had inserted secret agents to gather intelligence, identifying targets for airstrikes inside Libya.

On March 2, 2011, Yemen’s President Saleh, describing the role of CIA and Israeli Mossad, claimed, “I am going to reveal a secret…there is an operations room in Tel Aviv run by the White House with the aim of destabilising the Arab world. Saleh also said that opposition figures meet regularly with the US ambassador in Sanaa.

In its cables, Wikileaks have also disclosed that the CIA organized demonstrations in Syria and other Middle East countries.

However, in line with the Obama’s strategy, CIA agents succeeded in ousting Tunisian President Ben Ali, Egyptian Mubarak (a close ally of the US) and Lybian President Gaddafi.

Nevertheless, some latest resources suggest that under the pretext of Al Qaeda, the Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for CIA in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack Al Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen.

Question also arises as what the US will gain by waging its covert wars in these Islamic countries? It is notable that the politics places a big role in the unrest in the Middle East, while economic concerns are equally important. In these terms, US seeks to create instability in the Middle East and the Muslim North African countries in order to protect the interests of Israel. And it wants to control the oil fields of the Arab countries. While on the other side, despite CIA support to violent protests in these countries, resentment is running high against America and Israel. In this context, Egyptians victorious attack on Israeli embassy on September 9, 2011 in Cairo might be cited as an example.

It is mentionable that following the false flag of 9/11, the Bush administration announced to go after the so-called “axis of evil,” specifically Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Now Obama has presumed Pakistan, Iran and Syria as ‘axis of evil.” In this respect, determination of Iran to continue its nuclear programme and country’s support to Hezbollah which also defeated Israel in 2006 and Syrian stand for Palestinian cause irritate America.

Notably, Pakistan has become special target of the US-led India and Israel because it is the only ‘nuclearised’ Islamic country. While, frustrated with the defeat in Afghanistan, with the support of RAW and Mossad, the Obama administration has been implementing CIA secret war in Pakistan through bomb blasts, suicide attacks and targeted killings so as to destabilise our country. For the purpose, America has planned a CIA covert war against Pakistan, while the US, India and Israel are already assisting the insurgents and their paid-agents with money and weapons.

Recently, tension increased in Pak-US relations when American retiring top military officer Mike Mullen accused that Pakistan is waging a ‘proxy war’ in Afghanistan with the assistance of country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), alleging for a recent assault on the US embassy in Kabul. Mullen’s irresponsible statement was also repeated by the other US high officials who issued stern warning about Islamabad’s failure to crack down on the Haqqani network, and raised the possibility of US unilateral action in North Waziristan. Meanwhile, the US-backed intermittent attacks by the armed militants who infiltrated in Pakistan from Afghanistan have continued.

Nonetheless, Pakistan’s civil and military leadership, while rejecting US allegations and pressure, refused to launch military operation in North Waziristan—and made it clear that in future, Islamabad will deal with Washington on equal basis.

Under the pretext of cross-border terrorism and Haqqani group, US could intensify drone attacks on North Waziristan. Besides, as part of its covert war, America will also shift Afghan war to Pakistan after the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

No doubt, CIA has been waging covert wars in the Islamic World so as to fulfill American secret designs including those of India and Israel.

Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power: Dangerous Shift in International Relations

Email: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com