Reply #27: This could be why...

[Oilwellian]

THE WAR IN CHECHNYA
With regard to Chechnya, the main rebel leaders Shamil Basayev and Al Khattab were trained and indoctrinated in CIA sponsored camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan

http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/afghanistan/chossudovsky091201.html

Russia Hostage Suspect Has Violent Past

Associated Press


MOSCOW - The Chechen warlord who is suspected by Russian officials of masterminding the hostage-taking at a school in southern Russia threatened earlier in the summer to launch new attacks to avenge the killing of a Chechen rebel leader.

Russian security officials accused Shamil Basayev of planning the seizure of the school with al-Qaida financing, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Friday, after the standoff turned to bloodshed, with Russian troops storming the school.

http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/9576190.htm

The game plan...

The U.S. has invested heavily in the Caspian region. U.S. companies have put many billions of dollars into oil and gas projects and both the Clinton and Bush administrations have worked hard to curry favor with the former Soviet republics and limit the influence of Russia, Iran and China in the process.

As Anna Borg, a deputy assistant secretary for energy issues at the State Department told Congress in 2003, "The U.S. government and State Department are focusing on extensively."

Since 2001, the U.S. has not only established military bases in the region but it has also conducted joint Navy exercises with Azerbaijan in the Caspian and has supported Kazakhstan's push to establish its own Navy. The U.S. Coast Guard even patrols the Caspian Sea and the combined U.S. military presence makes Russia -- whose Caspian fleet has long exercised de-facto control over the sea -- very edgy.

As General Charles Wald, deputy commander of the U.S. European Command, explained to the Wall Street Journal in June 2003, "In the Caspian you have large mineral reserves ... We want to be able to assure the long-term viability of those resources."

Of central concern to the U.S. is the Baku to Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, a million-barrel-a-day project headed by BP, running from Baku, Azerbaijan, through Nagorno Karabak, a region claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia, into the turbulent republic of Georgia and on to the Black Sea port of Ceyhan. From there, oil would be shipped via tanker through the Bosphorus and into the Mediterranean on its way to Europe and the U.S.

The BTC pipeline will start carrying oil in 2005 but it runs through a smorgasbord of ethnic unrest. With new military bases in Romania and Bulgaria, a U.S. rapid response force is in easy reach of the Caucasus region to counter any threat to the smooth supply of Caspian Oil. And in Georgia, U.S. forces have been training the local military to counter armed Islamic groups operating out of the lawless Pankisi gorge. The stated purpose of this training is to fight the War on Terror, but insurgent activity now also threatens world oil security.
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