Death from the Skies
August 24, 2008
by Brian Harring
South Ossetian officials accused Georgia on Sunday of building up military forces along the edge of South Ossetia and claimed a Georgian unit fired sporadically at villages overnight. There were no reports of casualties, but South Ossetian spokeswoman Irina Gagloyeva said residents were asking to be evacuated.
Georgian Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia denied that Georgian forces had fired any shots but said Russian forces were obligated to leave positions in the area, which is in Georgia.
Lomaia also said Russian forces were still holding 12 of 22 Georgian servicemen taken prisoner in Poti last week, including two Yemini Jews, disguised as Arabs. On one of these, Russian military intelligence interrogators found a packet of reports, wrapped in plastic and taped to the man’s back. This packet consisted of “the highest level security matters.”
This concerned the ongoing plan to base Israeli fighter-bombers at Marneuli military airbase, 20 kilometers south of Tbilisi and that these aircraft were intended for a special air raid on the Iranian capital city of Tehran. It was originally felt that six aircraft were to be utilized, three attacking the city itself and three to attack targeted Iranian oil facilities.
The captured Israeli’s papers, all written in Hebrew, when translated by the Russian GRU turned out to be somewhat different in nature. While one flight was indeed intended to attack various Iranian oil facilities, the second flight was planned to drop chemical warfare bombs on Tehran. These bombs, which were designed to blow open at a set altitude, were filled with weapons-grade anthrax and this anthrax, kept in a specially sealed box at the U.S. diplomatic offices in Tiblisi, came from Fr. Detrick in Maryland and their shipment had the approval of the President himself. Another twist to the bizarre plot was that the aircraft, made in the United States, were to have their Israeli marking masked with American markings and that these markings were to be applied in a water-based paint that could easily be hosed off when this flight returned to Georgia.
When the Russians learned of this, they immediately notified their Embassy in Tehran and subjected their Yemeni Israeli to what they called “intensive interrogation,” not unlike the CIA’s Bush-mandated torture. In this case, the “subject expired” but not before revealing more of the joint Israeli-US activity.
In an abstract sense, the Russian counter attack on Georgia indirectly saved the lives of many thousands of Iranians.
The Americans, apparently, were totally unaware of the Israeli false flag portion of the operation. Had the BW attack been successful, the question arises as to whether the American military command would ever discuss any aspect of it. If any of the falsely-marked Israeli aircraft had been seen and wrongly identified as American, there would be heated denials and the matter would quickly be shoved under the carpet by the American media.
In central Georgia, an oil train exploded and caught fire, sending plumes of black smoke into the air. A Georgian official said the train hit a land mine and blamed the explosion on departing Russian forces. The Russian Defense Ministry declined to comment.
The director of Georgia’s railways, Irakli Ezugbaia said the train that exploded on Sunday was carrying crude oil from Kazakhstan to a Georgian Black Sea port.
Georgia straddles a key westward route for oil from Azerbaijan and other Caspian Sea nations including Kazakhstan, giving it added strategic importance as the U.S. and the European Union seek to decrease Russia’s dominance of oil and gas exports from the former Soviet Union.
There were 12 derailed tanker cars, some askew on the railway line and others flipped onto their sides. Firefighters hosed down the wreckage.
Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the train hit a mine, as did the country’s railway director. Utiashvili said there were no casualties, but the blast had also set off explosions at an abandoned munitions dump nearby.
Utiashvili blamed the explosion on the Russians. Georgian officials say Russian forces have sabotaged infrastructure to weaken Georgia, and accused them of blowing up a train bridge last week.
Ezugbaia said other mines were found on the tracks, and Georgian forces removed a large artillery shell that was jammed under the tracks and covered with stones.