Soviet secret services worked to establish a network of terrorist
front organizations and have been described as the primary promoters of terrorism worldwide.
[79][89][90] According to
Ion Mihai Pacepa, General
Aleksandr Sakharovsky from the
First Chief Directorate of the
KGB once said: "In today’s world, when
nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should become our main weapon."
[91] He also claimed that "Airplane hijacking is my own invention".
George Habash, who worked under the KGB's guidance,
[92] explained: "Killing one Jew far away from the field of battle is more effective than killing a hundred Jews on the field of battle, because it attracts more attention."
[91]
Lt. General
Ion Mihai Pacepa described the operation "SIG" ("
Zionist Governments") that was devised in 1972, to turn the whole Islamic world against
Israel and the
United States. KGB chairman
Yury Andropov allegedly explained to Pacepa that "a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a
Nazi-style hatred for the
Jews throughout the
Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States."
[93]
The following organizations have been allegedly established with assistance from
Eastern Bloc security services: the PLO, the
National Liberation Army of Bolivia(created in 1964 with help from
Ernesto Che Guevara); the
National Liberation Army of Colombia (created in 1965 with help from
Cuba), the
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) in 1969, and the
Secret Army for Liberation of Armenia in 1975.
[94]
The leader of the PLO,
Yasser Arafat, established close collaboration with the Romanian
Securitate service and the Soviet
KGB in the beginning of the 1970s.
[95]The secret training of PLO guerrillas was provided by the KGB.
[96] However, the main KGB activities and arms shipments were channeled through
Wadie Haddad of the DFLP organization, who usually stayed in a KGB
dacha BARVIKHA-1 during his visits to Russia. Led by
Carlos the Jackal, a group of PFLP fighters accomplished a spectacular raid the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries office in
Vienna in 1975. Advance notice of this operation "was almost certainly" given to the KGB.
[95]
A number of notable operations have been conducted by the KGB to support international terrorists with weapons on the orders from the
Soviet Communist Party, including:
- Transfer of machine-guns, automatic rifles, Walther pistols, and cartridges to the Provisional Irish Republican Army by the Soviet intelligence vessel Reduktor(operation SPLASH) in 1972 to fulfill a personal request of arms from Michael O'Riordan.[97]
- Transfer of anti-tank grenade RPG-7 launchers, radio-controlled SNOP mines, pistols with silencers, machine guns, and other weaponry to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine through Wadi Haddad who was recruited as a KGB agent in 1970 (operation VOSTOK, "East").[98]
- Support of the Sandinista movement. The leading role here belonged to the General Intelligence Directorate of Communist Cuba.[99]
- Support of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, in order to destabilize Turkey, a key NATO member during the Cold War.[100]
Large-scale terrorist operations have been prepared by the
KGB and
GRU against the United States, Canada and Europe, according to the
Mitrokhin Archive,
[101]GRU defectors
Victor Suvorov[102] and
Stanislav Lunev, and former
SVR officer Kouzminov.
[103] Among the planned operations were the following:
- Large arms caches were allegedly hidden in many countries for the planned terrorism acts. They were booby-trapped with "Lightning" explosive devices. One of such cache, which was identified by Mitrokhin, exploded when Swiss authorities tried to remove it from woods near Bern. Several others caches (probably not equipped with the "Lightnings") were removed successfully.[104]
- Preparations for nuclear sabotage. Some of the allegedly hidden caches could contain portable tactical nuclear weapons known as RA-115 "suitcase bombs" prepared to assassinate US leaders in the event of war, according to GRU defector Stanislav Lunev.[79] Lunev states that he had personally looked for hiding places for weapons caches in the Shenandoah Valley area[79] and that "it is surprisingly easy to smuggle nuclear weapons into the US" ether across the Mexican border or using a small transport missile that can slip undetected when launched from a Russian airplane.[79]
- Extensive sabotage plans in London, Washington, Paris, Bonn, Rome, and other Western capitals have been revealed by KGB defector Oleg Lyalin in 1971, including plan to flood the London underground and deliver poison capsules to Whitehall. This disclosure triggered mass expulsion of Russian spies from London.[105]
- FSLN leader Carlos Fonseca Amador was described as "a trusted agent" in KGB files. "Sandinista guerrillas formed the basis for a KGB sabotage and intelligence group established in 1966 on the Mexican US border".[106]
- Disruption of the power supply in the entire New York State by KGB sabotage teams, which would be based along the Delaware River, in the Big Spring Park.[107]
- An "immensely detailed" plan to destroy "oil refineries and oil and gas pipelines across Canada from British Columbia to Montreal" (operation "Cedar") has been prepared, which took twelve years to complete.[108]
- A plan for sabotage of Hungry Horse Dam in Montana.[107]
- A detailed plan to destroy the port of New York (target GRANIT); most vulnerable points of the port were marked at maps.[107]
