by Conrad Jones
As the bombs began to fall miles away across the misty valley, the men shuffled around the cave preparing for the day’s struggle against the Russian invaders. They hung ammunition belts around their necks and then wrapped thin blankets over their ‘shalwar kameez’ or smock tops. The straps on their Kalashnikov rifles were hitched over the shoulder, and extra bullet magazines stuffed into homemade webbing pouches. Yasser mingled with his men and patted them encouragingly, kissing some on the cheek and assuring them that their God was fighting alongside them. The men were a mixture of Iranians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Somalians, Iraqis, Afghans, Uzbeks, Ingushes, Dags, Kumyks and indigenous Chechens. The sky had begun to lighten and Yasser could see long files of Mujahideen marching from the caves along the ridge toward the steep, dark, forested slopes that rose in the distance to snowy peaks. To the north he could see the city of Grozny through the lifting mists, and the mountains beyond. The Mujahideen left the caves to take up their combat positions and lie in wait for unsuspecting Soviets troops to ambush.
Yasser watched them leave and then returned to the fire and sat down on the boulder again. He had a canvas bag next to him, and he picked it up and reached inside. Yasser removed a bundle of old newspapers, tattered and torn around the edges, the paper was yellowed. He was looking at the front cover of the New York Times dated three months earlier. On the cover was the black and white image of a tickertape parade in Times Square, New York. Millions of pieces of coloured confetti floated from the surrounding buildings, and in the centre of the picture was a woman riding an open top bus through crowded streets. The woman had short sculptured black hair and perfect porcelain teeth, which she was displaying with a winning smile. Her name was Hilary Rice and she had made history by becoming the first black female President of the United States. The picture was taken when she had won the presidential by-election in the State of New York, on the way to The White House. She was pictured waving to an adoring crowd, surrounded by her election team, which consisted of thirty two people. Twenty eight of her closest associates were women, which had given Yasser his plan.
On May 12th 2003 a pro-Moscow festival was organised by Russia’s President Putin as a tribute to the great Prophet Mohammed, in the town of Ilaskhan-Yurt. It was seen as a cynical attempt to quieten Islamic insurgents, and became the target of a Chechen rebel attack. Thousands of Muslim pilgrims attended the festival, which was to be addressed by the pro-Russian Chechen administrator, and senior religious figures who supported Putin’s peace plan. Shakhida Baimuratova was the forty six year old mother of three missing, presumed dead sons. Her sons were taken for questioning by the authorities six years earlier and were never heard of again. Her husband was wrongly identified as a Chechen rebel in 1999 and shot dead in front of her in the town’s local market. She arrived at the festival carrying twenty eight pounds of high explosives beneath her Muslim dress, and approached the stand where the officials were sitting. Shakhida detonated her suicide vest resulting in the deaths of 150 pilgrims. Putin was not injured but five of his bodyguards were killed, and he stated that he was concerned that there would be further attacks by a new breed of suicide bombers. He described the attacks as a frightening new form of rebel insurgency in a decade old conflict. A day after his reaction to the bombing another woman, in the usually peaceful north of the country, drove a truck packed full of explosives into a government compound killing seventy-five soldiers. Russia began taking the threat of the Black Widows seriously when the attacks were happening on an almost daily basis.
Thursday June 5th, 2003 at 7.36am, Masdika Korchnoi was waiting at a bus stop near the military air base of Mozdok, which is a major military installation in Russia’s North Ossetia province. She was a 25 year old widow, and mother of two missing sons. Masdika dressed in a white overall disguised as a nurse, and waited for the bus to arrive. She was surrounded by Russian soldiers and civilian support staff when the bus arrived. The bus had slowed down to allow a car to pull away from the bus stop, and when its doors opened there was only room for a few more passengers, which did not include the would be bomber. Madika threw herself underneath the bus and detonated her device. Fifty seven people were killed and seventeen seriously injured in the blast.
Yasser knew that he could harness the hatred that these Black Widows harboured into a powerful asset. Hiding in caves and killing a handful of Russian conscript soldiers would not win Islam’s Jihad. Yasser wanted to reach into his enemy’s backyard again, and hit them where they were most vulnerable. Although his plan was not one hundred percent completed it was close to being put into action. He just needed a little more time to finalise details and recruit the assistance from abroad that he would require. The Russians were closing in on the Chechen rebels, and getting closer to the network of caves every day. They needed to move back across the border to Dagestan to regroup and rearm. Many of the Mujahideen needed medical attention, and there was a hospital facility forty miles across the border, which was sympathetic to the rebels cause. Yasser saw the white exhaust trail of a Russian passenger jet approaching Grozny airport and he aimed an imaginary rifle at it and pulled the imaginary trigger smiling.
Two Russian passenger jets crashed in 2004 causing huge embarrassment to President Putin, who had gained power on a promise to eradicate Chechen violence and bring renewed security to Russia. Officials discovered the remains and DNA of two Chechen women, thought to be suicide bombers, and Black Widows. Traces of explosives were found on the remains of the two women. The loss of the two Russian passenger jets was the first successful attack on airlines by Islamic extremists since September 11th. The smaller of the two jets, a TU-134, carrying forty four people, crashed near Tula in the south of Moscow. The Chechen woman on board this plane was identified as Amanta Nagayeva. She bought her ticket just one hour before the flight took off. Two fragments of her body were found two and a half miles apart, and she was the only woman not to have her remains claimed. Nagayeva was born in 1977 near Vadeno, which was the home of Islamic Chechen warlord, Shamil Basayev, and lived in Grozny.
The larger jet exploded minutes later near the city of Rostov, killing forty six people. Experts found traces of the military explosive Hexogen in the wreckage, and on the remains of another Chechen woman called Djerbikhanova. She was originally booked on another flight but swapped it at the last minute to the evening flight, which carried more passengers. Djerbikhanova requested seat 19 f, nine rows from the tail, which is considered to be the most vulnerable part of the aircraft. Once again she was the only passenger to remain unclaimed by family. The attacks were brushed under the carpet by the Russians because of lapses in airport security, which had allowed the suicide bombers to gain passage onto the planes.
Many in the West didn’t know anything about the Chechen Black Widows or the wider Islamic struggles against the Russians in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Yasser Ahmed was going to change that in dramatic fashion. The West would know and remember the Black Widows for centuries to come. He took one last look at the picture of Hilary Rice and smiled. He placed the newspaper back into his canvas bag and hitched his Kalashnikov rifle over his shoulder before heading down the rocky slopes to join the Mujahideen.
Chapter 42
Special Operations Team/ Tank
Tank watched a team of United States Air Force technicians dismantling four MQ-1 Predator drones. Unlike the British unmanned helicopter drones the Predators were small pilotless airplanes. Each Predator air vehicle can be disassembled into six smaller components and loaded into a container nicknamed ‘the coffin’. This enables all system components and support equipment to be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world. The largest component is the ground control station which is designed to be rolled into the back of a C-130 Hercules transporter plane, and its associated twenty foot satellite dish. The drones need one hundred and fifty yards of flat ground to take off and land and are virtually silent when they are airborne.
“How good are these drones Chen?” Tank asked his colleague, who was a mi
ne of technical information.
Chen frowned at Tank, his jaw dropped, and his mouth opened making him look a bit simple. “The MQ-1 has been used extensively in Afghanistan since about 2005,” Chen began, “it has participated in more than two-hundred and fifty separate raids, engaged one-hundred and thirty two different troop divisions, fired over five-hundred Hellfire missiles, surveyed eighteen-thousand targets, escorted forty convoys and flown over two-thousand sorties for more than thirty-three thousand, eight-hundred and thirty-three hours.” Chen shrugged his shoulders as if everyone should know that.
“You really are a nerd,” Tank said patting Chen on the head with his big hand.
“You should read your e-mails Tank, I am just repeating information that you have also received,” Chen replied sounding offended.
“I seem to remember an al-Qaeda camp being taken out recently by one of these,” Tank recalled.
“That’s right,” Chen perked up at the opportunity to impart more useful information, “October 30th, 2006 the CIA launched a drone to strike an alleged training camp in the Bajaur region. They had received information that al-Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri was residing there. The religious school was hit by six Hellfire missiles, killing eighty-five extremists, including five senior al-Qaeda members.”
“Well we will need all the back-up we can get on this trip,” Tank said, “as it stands, we can afford to deploy eighty men to attack the hospital in Kizlyar, and extract the Saudi. Apache special operation attack helicopters will take us in and take out any artillery in the surrounding area, but they don’t have airspace clearance to hang around. MH-53 Pave Low, long range helicopters will supply us with long wheel base armoured Land Rovers for our evac. Apart from the drone’s support our exit strategy is exposed, because we’re not supposed to be there, we will be on our own.”
The mission was dangerous. AH-6 ‘little birds’ helicopters would drop in a reconnaissance squad to identify where the anti-aircraft positions were located. Combined with the information from the drones, which could pick up human signatures by tracking body heat from ten-thousand feet up, a clear picture could be analysed before the main body of the attack force was inserted. AH-64D Apache gunships would then destroy armoured positions and heavy machinegun posts before quickly returning over the border before they could be detected. The Apache gunships were crucial for destroying Iraqi tanks in the second invasion of Iraq. On March 24th, 2003 the US launched thirty-two Apache helicopters against the Iraqi Medina armoured division. The results were spectacular; seven Iraqi air defence positions were destroyed along with three long range artillery systems, five radar posts and seventy-five T-52 tanks. They virtually cleared the road to Baghdad.
“What information do we have about the minefields?” Tank asked Chen. During the siege of Kizlyar hospital Russian Spetsnaz had used cluster bombs to attack the Chechen rebels. They dispersed anti-personnel mines over a wide area to discourage enemy soldiers returning to the site. The mines varied in size and makeup. Some were metal and detectable, but others were made from wood and plastic, making them invisible to metal detectors, and stopping them from corroding so that they were active for decades.
“We know that we will need to clear paths through the minefield surrounding the facility, but the Dagestan border regions are also heavily mined and we won’t be able to go anywhere quickly or quietly,” Chen answered. British Special Forces had a tactical weapon called the ‘Rapid Anti-Personnel Minefield Breaching System’ or RAMBS 11. It is adapted from a rifle grenade and provides an effective and flexible method of clearing a safe path sixty metres wide, and a half metre deep through mined areas. The obvious problem was the noise it generated and the length of time taken. Most of the borders around the mountainous region between the southern Soviet states and the Middle Eastern countries of Turkey and Iran have areas that are mined. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan all deploy mines on their borders. The mines are deployed by indigenous government forces trying to stop Islamic extremists groups and drug traffickers crossing into their country from the mountains.
“Let’s hope that we don’t need to leave in a hurry,” Tank mused, “we have forty miles to cover before the helicopters can return to perform an extraction.” Satellite pictures monitored troops crossing the mountains from Chechnya into Dagestan sporadically. They were usually employed to focus on the mountains further east in the search for Osama bin Laden, because they knew he was there somewhere. Information about Yasser Ahmed was sketchy and based on rumour and uncorroborated hearsay. They couldn’t dedicate a satellite to the extraction mission because officially it didn’t exist.
“Once we have the Saudi I doubt the rebels will pursue us,” Chen said, “the number of rebels defending the facility seems to yo-yo when the Mujahideen leave Chechnya to resupply. Numbers can treble overnight because it’s so close to the Dagestan border. The satellite information we have shows hundreds of Mujahideen active in the mountains above Grozny, and as long as they stay that side of the border then we should be in and out.”
“When was Yasser Ahmed last seen,” Tank asked, he knew the information was unreliable but any news was better than no news.
“Roughly three months ago,” Chen answered frowning, “I thought Jeannie Kellesh was our objective Tank. We won’t have the time or the resources to go on a witch hunt in the Chechen mountains.”
“I have got a funny feeling that we might not have to look too far Chen,” Tank answered, “that facility is an essential part of the Mujahideen struggle. We know its bank accounts are supplied with money made in Russia by the Chechen mafia. If Yasser Ahmed is in Chechnya then he has been to that hospital, and if he has been there recently then I’m going to find him.”
Chen didn’t challenge Tank because the look on his face said it all.
Chapter 43
Roman Kordinski/ Chester High Court
Roman was perched on a low wooden seat and handcuffed to a metal bracket, which was attached to the floor of the prison van. The prison van was white with blacked out reflective windows, which stopped the paparazzi from taking pictures of notorious criminals inside it. The prison van looked like a horse box with windows. Inside a central isle led to twelve holding cells, six on one side, and six on the other. The holding cells were three feet square and incredibly cramped, containing a narrow wooden ledge for a prisoner to perch on during the journey from prison to court, and back. Roman looked out of the mirrored window as the van slowed down to enter the access road, which led to the Chester City High Courts. He was arrested and charged under the terrorism act, which dictated that suspects must be committed to trial by jury. Committal to trial had to be carried out in the province where the alleged crime was committed, which required a trip north to Chester.
To his left, steep stone steps descended from street level down to Chester’s racecourse, which is called the Roodee. The manicured grass track was the smallest horse racetrack in the world, and is almost completely surrounded by the River Dee. Records show it as the oldest racecourse still in use in England, dating back to the early sixteenth century. Roman had enjoyed the races at Chester many times prior to his arrest, usually arriving by private helicopter as opposed to a prison van. His memory wandered back to sunny days stood in the huge white grandstand watching the well groomed thoroughbreds galloping toward the finishing post. The ancient 65-acre racecourse lies on the site of an old Roman harbour built during the Roman settlement of the city, which took place during the Dark Ages. Through the centuries the river silted up making navigation impossible. He looked to the east of the racecourse which abuts directly onto Chester’s ancient city walls, which were once used to moor Roman trading vessels. He longed to be free of the handcuffs and the locked doors, barred windows and prison guards. The racecourse looked so attractive in the sunshine that he yearned for his freedom.
The prison van turned into the grounds of the court and passed beneath a grey stone arch. The historic arch was topped with a full
size statue of the female warrior Boadicea, riding in her chariot behind two huge bronze horses. Armed policemen lined the courtyard awaiting Roman Kordinski’s arrival. The fact that the oil tycoon was implicated in two high profile terrorist attacks made him a possible target for a vigilante attack. He also had the financial might to finance a prison break, despite the fact that his visible assets were frozen. It was widely believed by the security services that Kordinski had millions hidden from the government’s reach. The most vulnerable position that a guest of Her Majesty’s Prison Service could be in, was outside the prison walls. Transporting high profile prisoners to and from court was fraught with danger, especially someone of Kordinski’s means. The British prison service is armed only with batons. Armed support had to be provided by the police service to protect the convoy.
The van came to a halt and Roman heard keys unlocking the main door of the prison vehicle. The door was yanked open and bright light filled the gloom. He squinted his eyes as they became accustomed to the sunshine. The van swayed and rocked as three burly prison guards entered the vehicle.