Moscow Accuses US, UK of Exploiting Afghan Situation to Destabilize C. Asia
Michael Hughes
June 23, 2023
Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev during remarks at a gathering of peers in Kazakhstan said the United States and Britain have tried to take advantage of the chaos in Afghanistan as part of a broader strategy to wreak havoc across Central Asia.
“The Americans and the British are trying to manipulate the terrorist insurgency in Afghanistan to their advantage by provoking tensions on the borders with Central Asian countries,” Patrushev said on Friday at the Russia-Central Asia meeting of security council chiefs. “Given the interest of Afghanistan’s neighbors in strengthening their borders and improving the training and equipping their security forces, the United States and its NATO allies are seeking to expand their presence in Central Asia and create more opportunities to influence them.”
The Russian official said Washington and London are using propaganda in a bid to aggravate the internal political situation and form a population that “shares values alien to the centuries-old traditions of Central Asian peoples.” Moscow is particularly concerned by the Pentagon’s biolabs operating in Central Asia that are capable of creating “race-specific” viruses, Patrushev added.
As observed in an AOP op-ed in February, Washington saw as one of the benefits of exiting Afghanistan the prospect that terrorists groups would flourish and target countries in the region – including U.S. rivals like China and Russia. The White House had actually been explicit about putting their assets in Afghanistan to better use, as a senior Biden administration official explained to reporters in the spring of 2021.
“One of the reasons why the president [Biden] and his team has taken the careful steps on Afghanistan is actually to free up the time and attention and resources from our senior leadership and our military to focus on what we believe are the fundamental challenges of the 21st century and they lie fundamentally in the Indo-Pacific,” the unnamed U.S. official said during a teleconference.
Moreover, ahead of the U.S. exit, former Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar warned that the U.S. and its allies would promote regime change in Central Asia “using Islam as a geopolitical tool.” As U.S. troops were exiting, the CIA was already pushing ahead with its “blueprint” to use Afghanistan as a post to destabilize Russia, Iran, and China, the ex-Indian diplomat suggested.
Russia is quite convinced that this is exactly what is happening, although perhaps to a greater extent than many onlookers predicted. Patrushev’s assessment echoes the one put forth by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu in May at a CSTO defense chief meeting. Shoigu said Russia believed the U.S., after its “hasty” withdrawal from Afghanistan, intends to strengthen illegal armed groups. And NATO, he added, instead of working for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, has sought to restore its military presence in the region. He went so far as to suggest that Washington helped escort to Afghanistan jihadists the U.S. armed and trained in Syria.
“For this purpose, the redeployment of fighters from the controlled gangs in Middle East to Afghanistan has been organized,” Shoigu said as quoted by TASS.
In January, Russian special presidential envoy for Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov indicated that there was evidence the U.S. was actively supporting terrorist entities inside Afghanistan. The motive at the time seemed more short-sighted: the Americans wanted to avenge their “shameful” military-political defeat. So, in retaliation, he added, the U.S. is trying its utmost to ensure peace is not established in the war-torn long-suffering country.
“But, even worse is that, in addition to contacts with the armed opposition in Afghanistan, the Anglo-Saxons secretly sponsor the Daesh,” Kabulov said.
Although Moscow has yet to provide specific intelligence on this matter, is the allegation all that absurd? The motive isn’t necessarily as clear cut as the support for the mujahideen was. In any case, one does not have to go back to the 1980s to find clear evidence of the U.S. providing material support to terrorist groups. The U.S. openly provided funding to known terrorist outfits in Syria because they shared a common enemy. This included one group, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, who in 2016 beheaded a 12-year-old Palestinian boy named Abdullah Issa, who had been fighting with a pro-Syrian government militia. Videos of the beheading emerged online which caught the State Department flat-footed. U.S. officials refused to comment on or explain why this group was on the CIA payroll. Of course, we all know the answer.
In fact, a former State Department official wrote an entire book about how the U.S. helped terrorists get visas to enter war zones. Michael Springmann, while working as a diplomat in Saudi Arabia, said he witnessed the phenomena firsthand. According to his book, “Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World,” the CIA redeployed to other war fronts the very same operatives who fought in the anti-Soviet jihad. The U.S. provided illegal passports for terrorists to travel from Afghanistan to the Balkans, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
And now, perhaps, the U.S. is sending them back.