http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/06/24/012.html Friday, June 24, 2005. Page 3. Putin Voices Worries About Afghanistan By Vladimir Isachenkov The Associated Press President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia and other former Soviet republics were concerned about terrorist training bases in Afghanistan and that country's booming drug trade. Speaking after a meeting of leaders of six former Soviet republics, all members of the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization, Putin said terrorists in Afghanistan enjoyed some foreign backing. "We are seriously concerned about terrorists' training bases continuing to function on Afghan territory, some with direct involvement of some secret services," Putin said, without elaborating. "Afghanistan also has remained the source of increasing drug trafficking." Members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which unites Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Belarus and Armenia, have long expressed their worries about drugs and instability spilling over from Afghanistan. Authorities in Uzbekistan, which is not a member of the organization, said militants from Afghanistan helped stage May's uprising in the Uzbek city of Andijan. At a separate meeting of security officials from former Soviet republics, a senior Russian official said militants who underwent training in international terrorist camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan had used Iran and Central Asian nations for transit. Yury Sapunov, the head of the anti-terrorist department at the Federal Security Service, also said some of the militants fighting in Chechnya and other restive Caucasus regions in Russia's south had come from Western Europe. "Channels for bringing terrorists to the North Caucasus begin in Western European countries and run through Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia," Sapunov said, Interfax and Itar-Tass reported. Sapunov reaffirmed Moscow's criticism of the United States and other Western nations for their refusal to extradite Chechen rebel leaders. He said FSB agents in Chechnya had killed 58 militants since the beginning of the year. During Thursday's meeting, the treaty organization's members signed an agreement to foster cooperation in training military personnel and set up a commission intended to promote closer ties between their defense industries. Putin said member states were also planning to develop a joint air defense system and build up their collective rapid reaction forces. These forces could be used for peacekeeping operations, Putin said. Putin said after the talks that the group planned to establish contacts with NATO. <http://www.themoscowtimes.com/other/reprints/copywrite.html> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
