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The KGB, when I was still connected with it, went to great lengths to transform an Egyptian born Marxist, Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, nom de guerre Abu Ammar, into a Palestinian-born Yasser Arafat.  It took the KGB — and my DIE — many years to endow Arafat with a credible Palestinian birth certificate and other identity documents, to build him a new past, and to train him at the KGB Balashikha special-operations training school east of Moscow.

Pacepa, Ion Mihai and Rychlak, Ronald J.  Disinformation.  P. 289.  Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2013.

About a month ago, Russian President Putin’s “Special Representative for the Middle East and Deputy Foreign Minister” Mikhail Bogdanov met with representatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and discussed, among other things, the stalled delivery of Russian S-300 missiles to Syria in 2012.  Two days ago, the issue resurfaced in the news with the message that the delivery would go through.

Loosely Related Reference

How much to you believe in or endorse “political theater” (or state-managed information space) for the aggrandizement of certain “producers”?

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/report-reveals-putin-allies-hands-in-major-media-company/511302.html – 11/17/2014.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russia-tightens-control-over-foreign-ownership-of-print-media/511170.html – 11/16/2014.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/books/review/putins-kleptocracy-by-karen-dawisha.html – 11/25/2014 (review by Rajan Menon):

In explaining the system’s workings, Dawisha enumerates the standard shenanigans of crooked regimes: bribetaking from domestic and foreign companies seeking business permits; kickbacks from inflated no-bid contracts for state projects; privatization deals rigged to enrich cronies who will later be cash cows for the Kremlin; illicit exports of raw materials purchased at state-subsidized prices and sold for a killing; “donations” from oligarchs eager to keep feeding at the government’s trough; real estate scams yielding mega-profits and palatial homes; money laundering; election-fixing; labyrinthine offshore accounts; lucrative partnerships with the mob; and the intimidation, even elimination, of would-be whistle-blowers.

https://www.tumblr.com/search/Karen+Dawisha

Update December 7, 2014

Reference: January 2014 Incident in Latakia

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4600690,00.html – 12/7/2014: “Syrian media: IAF struck targets near Damascus: According to Syrian television, Israel targeted two security positions near the international airport in the capital.” / http://www.debka.com/newsupdate/7052/ – 1/27/2014: “DEBKAfile: There was no Israeli air strike on Latakia, Syria.” / http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2014/01/iaf-took-out-s-300s-in-latakia.html

Update – October 31, 2015 – Pacepa – First Person Account – January 12, 2002

Last week Israel seized a boat carrying 50 tons of Iranian-made mortars, long-range missiles and antitank rockets destined for the Palestinian Authority. The vessel, Karim A., is owned by the Palestinian Authority, and its captain and several crewmen are members of the Palestinian naval police. I am not surprised to see that Yasser Arafat remains the same bloody terrorist I knew so well during my years at the top of Romania’s foreign intelligence service. I became directly involved with Arafat in the late 1960s, in the days when he was being financed and manipulated by the KGB. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel humiliated two of the Soviet Union’s Arab client states, Egypt and Syria. A couple of months later, the head of Soviet foreign intelligence, Gen. Alexander Sakharovsky, landed in Bucharest. According to him, the Kremlin had charged the KGB to “repair the prestige” of “our Arab friends” by helping them organize terrorist operations that would humiliate Israel. The main KGB asset in this joint venture was a “devoted Marxist-Leninist”–Yasser Arafat, co-founder of Fatah, the Palestinian military force.

http://webhome.weizmann.ac.il/home/comartin/israel/pacepa-wsj.html – 1/12/2002.

Pacepa, Ion Mihai.  “The KGB’s Man.”  The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2003:

The Israeli government has vowed to expel Yasser Arafat, calling him an “obstacle” to peace. But the 72-year-old Palestinian leader is much more than that; he is a career terrorist, trained, armed and bankrolled by the Soviet Union and its satellites for decades.

Before I defected to America from Romania, leaving my post as chief of Romanian intelligence, I was responsible for giving Arafat about $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s. I also sent two cargo planes to Beirut a week, stuffed with uniforms and supplies. Other Soviet bloc states did much the same. Terrorism has been extremely profitable for Arafat. According to Forbes magazine, he is today the sixth wealthiest among the world’s “kings, queens & despots,” with more than $300 million stashed in Swiss bank accounts.

Related: Wikipedia.  “Ion Mihai Pacepa”.

Update – August 27, 2016 – Another Piece (Online) by Pacepa

Pacepa, Ion Mihai.  “What does Moscow have to do with the recent war in Lebanon?”  National Review, August 24, 2006.

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