China Moves Forces into Afghanistan
Source: DEBKAfile <http://www.debka.com/>
6 October: Before even the launching of the major US military offensive in
Afghanistan, long Chinese convoys were carrying armed Chinese Muslim
servicemen through northwest China into Afghanistan, according to
DEBKAfile�s intelligence experts.
They were sent in to fight alongside the ruling Taliban and Osama Bin
Laden�s Al Qaeda. Their number is estimated roughly between 5000 and
15,000. Our sources report another three convoys are behind the first 3000,
who crossed the frontier Friday, October 5.
They are entering Afghanistan along the ancient Krakoram Road to the
Afghan-Pakistani border, through the Kulik Pass of Little Pamir, which is
situated in one of the highest and most remote regions of the world.
Beijing is deploying this force in two places:
A. Whakyir, the Kirgyz tribal encampment near the Little Pamir-Tadjik
frontier, opposite the swelling concentration of US and Russian Special
Forces and air strength The Chinese have brought with them Kirgyz
fundamentalist militants from the Ferghana Valley of Central Asia, as
interpreters. From Whakyir, the Chinese generals believe, with Bin Laden�s
and the Taliban�s tacticians, they will be able to block off the movement of
the US-led force from its rallying point in Dzhartygumbez, Tadjikistan, no
more than 35 miles from Little Pamir, into the mountains of Hindu Kush.
B. Jalalabad in north Afghanistan, at the foot of the Hindu Kush range.
DEBKAfile�s Chinese sources reveal that, immediately after the terrorist
strikes in the United States on September 11, the Chinese intelligence
service, MSS, handed in to the defense ministry in Beijing their estimation
that the United States would go to war to overthrow the Taliban regime, for
the sake of which it would sign a pact with Russia. The Chinese leadership
viewed this eventuality as the most significant shift in the global balance
since the 1962 Chinese-Russian feud, with dangerous implications for China�s
world standing and its interests in Central and Southwest Asia. They decided
it must be counteracted.
The only satisfactory outcome of the Bin Laden crisis in Chinese eyes is the
redeployment of Japanese-based US troops to the Persian Gulf, when the Kitty
Hawk carrier moved the 3rd Marines Division out of Okinawa last week.
Chinese intelligence did not miss the absence of fighters and reconnaissance
craft on her decks. The planes stayed behind, but the very fact that the
Kitty Hawk is no longer within operational range of the Straits of Taiwan
leaves the disputed island with diminished protection.
Beijing also took note of additional US military movements, including the
Army�s 10th Mountain Division based at Fort Drum, New York and that of
another formerly Pacific-based unit, the 25th Infantry Division, out of
Hawaii to the Persian Gulf.
According to DEBKAfile �s Far East experts, the removal of substantial US
military strength from the Pacific Rim opened the way for Chinese
intervention in Afghanistan and its effort to slow down the US-Russian
advance.
Tactical Nuclear Weapons Deployed
6 October: DEBKAfile�s military and intelligence sources report that
Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, in a single 70-minuted
conversation on September 23, eleven days after the terrorist assaults in
New York and Washington, agreed on the deployment of tactical weapons. This
is an epic shift in the global balance of strength.
Putin gave the nod for US forces poised in Central Asia to jump into
Afghanistan to be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, such as small neutron
bombs, which emit strong radiation, nuclear mines, shells, and other nuclear
ammunition suited to commando warfare in mountainous terrain.
In return, Bush assented to Russia deploying tactical nuclear weapons units
around Chechnya after Moscow�s ultimatum to the rebels, some of whom are
backed by Osama Bin Laden, to surrender, went by without response.
DEBKAfile�s military sources place the US nuclear weapons in four former
Soviet Central Asian bases: the military air facility at Tuzel, 15 km (10
miles) northwest of the Uzbek capital of Tashkent; at Kagady in the Termez
region; in Khandabad, near the city of Karshi; and at the military air base
in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
In addition to the nuclear weapons units, Russian bombers carrying small
neutron bombs were moved to Russian military air bases around the border of
the breakaway province, in Stavropol northwest of Chechnya, the Godowta base
in Georgia to the south, and Mozdok in northern Osetia, northwest of
Chechnya.
Russian and U.S. military sources refuse to take questions on these
startling events.
The US is far from eager to actively inject a nuclear element into the war
against terrorism and will not be the first to do so. According to
DEBKAfile�s military sources, the US plans to hold those tactical nuclear
weapons in reserve, unleashing them in the campaign against bin Laden only
in certain extreme circumstances:
1. To counter a move by Bin Laden�s men first bring out nuclear, chemical
or biological weapons against the US force fighting inside Afghanistan.
2. If a chemical or biological assault by the Taliban against Pakistan.
3. Should groups of bin Laden�s Al Qaeda network � either in Central Asia
or the Balkans � wield these weapons of mass destruction against US military
targets or US nuclear arms in other parts of the world.
4. If using them is the only way to save heavy American combat casualties.
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