LITVINENKO ATTESTS TO SPECIAL SERVICES LINK.

In a similar vein, Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former senior officer of the FSB now living in London, said during an October 29 interview with Radio Liberty’s Russian Service: “About fifty persons, a majority of whom were dressed in camouflage uniforms, penetrated to the center of Moscow and seized about 700 hostages. This group was armed with Kalashnikov automatic weapons, grenade launchers and, according to the mass media, two tons of plastic explosive. Plastic explosive is yet more complicated than hexogen. Where could they have gotten that plastic explosive? It is not produced under field conditions.” And Litvinenko continued: “This terrorist act was committed by a nephew of the well-known terrorist Arbi Baraev. There have been a large number of publications to the effect that he was an agent of the Russian special services. In the newspaper Versiya, Petr Pryashnikov described how Arbi Baraev had come to Moscow and, at a secret apartment on Kutuzov Avenue, had had a meeting with the [presidential] head of administration Voloshin. That article has not been refuted to this day.”

“Let us now take the nephew,” Litvinenko went on. “He was on the [Russian] terrorist wanted list, that is, the FSB cannot say that they overlooked this terrorist act because they did not know about these people. Movsar Baraev, the man who committed this terrorist act, was very well known to the FSB, and Russian law enforcement organs had his photograph and all the necessary information about him. He was on the wanted list and, as I understand it, if he was considered a dangerous terrorist; his photograph should have been in the possession of every Russian policeman. Imagine if bin Laden with a Kalashnikov in camouflage uniform had been moving about in Washington! But why then was Movsar Baraev peacefully traveling about in Moscow in camouflage clothing with a Kalashnikov?”