"This international terrorism is a handy thing!"

Excerpts from an interview of retired Gen-Lt. Leonid Shebarshin, former head of the USSR's foreign intelligence agency and currently president of a consulting company called "Russian National Economic Security Service" - published in Vremia Novostei earlier this week under the headline, "This International Terrorism Is a Handy Thing!" This one I translated myself.

Question: Today Al-Qaeda and its head Bin Laden are the number-one enemies of the international community. Did the KGB in the Soviet era forecast this situation?

Answer: Terrorism is as old as human history. But the concept of "international terrorism," just like the myth about Bin Laden, was born in the USA. Long before the events of September 11th, by the way....The USA has given itself the right to strike anywhere in the world under the pretext of fighting the threat of international terrorism. This battle cry is convenient for certain people in Russia as well, since it explains many negative phenomena. So they say, "It's all the scheming of international terrorists, who even the Americans and the whole internatinal coalition haven't been able to defeat." And criminal activity in Russia remains at an unacceptably high level. This
international terrorism is a handy thing! [...]

Question: What stands behind Al-Qaeda?

Answer: I was talking with an expert from the RAND Corporation who studies Al-Qaeda, and we came to the conclusion that it's not an organization, but rather a notion or an idea. And a battle with this omnipotent, omnipresent, and mysterious myth, entwined with Islam, is very much in the Americans' interests, since it is directed at oil-rich Islamic regions. [...]

Question: But [Bin Laden's] emissaries have been found even in Chechnya.

Answer: The easiest thing is to chalk it all up to Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden! [...]