The Zionist Strategy to Balkanize Iraq

by Christopher Bollyn 

October 3, 2005 

The arrest of two British agents disguised as Shiite "terrorists" with a car full of explosives in Basra suggests that British occupation forces are involved in Iraq's so-called sectarian terror bombings, which, until now, have been mysterious, unclaimed and unexplained acts of senseless violence. The on-going wave of "false flag" terror bombings is the realization of the Zionist strategy and is meant to foment civil strife leading to the Balkanization of Iraq. 

After shooting and killing Iraqi police and civilians in Basra, two British agents from the Special Air Service (SAS) or a branch organization of the special forces, disguised as suicide bombers from the Mehdi Army, were caught "red-handed" in a car loaded with explosives.  Unable to secure the release of the two disguised terrorists from the local police, British forces took extraordinary action and bulldozed the police compound and jail in Basra and threatened Iraqi police officers at gunpoint until the British agents were turned over. 

The front pages of the leading British papers on Sept. 20 carried dramatic photos of a burning tank involved in the first attempt to release the men, but the more significant and largely obscured story was in the details of the two British terror agents "whose arrest set Basra ablaze," as the Daily Mail wrote. 

The International Herald Tribune, the American paper published abroad by the New York Times, did not even mention the important events in Basra that have apparently exposed a source of the so-called sectarian terrorism in Iraq.  Unclaimed and seemingly random car bombings have claimed hundreds of Iraqi lives in the past month, and thousands have perished in similar senseless bombings in the 30 months since the Anglo American occupation of Iraq began. This wave of apparent "false flag" terror attacks is actually the realization of a long-held Zionist strategy to foment sectarian violence leading to the Balkanization of Iraq into three ethnic statelets.

BOMBING MARKETS 

Many of these car bombings are not carried out by suicide bombers, but are simply parked cars loaded with explosives, like that driven by the two arrested British "soldiers." These car bombs are usually left near crowded areas, such as markets, and kill many innocent civilians.  On Sept. 30, for example, a car bomb detonated near a fruit and vegetable market in the town of Hilla, killing 8 and wounding 41. Similar car bombs killed 110 Iraqi Shiite civilians in the two days prior to Sept. 30. 

On Sept. 29, three pick-up trucks packed with explosives detonated in quick succession in Balad, 80 km north of Baghdad. The first bomb went off at the open-air market. Ten minutes later, the second car bomb detonated across the street, just as emergency workers were arriving. The third bomb exploded 10 minutes later in a residential area reported to be predominantly Shiite.  "There were no police there, no American patrols, only innocent people shopping at the market," a high-ranking Balad police official told the New York Times. 

Likewise, on Sept. 18, a car bomb killed 30 people at the market in Nahrwan, about 45 km from Baghdad. "It was not a suicide bomb," a police spokesman said. "A car parked in the middle of the square, and later it blew up."  In the week of the Nahrwan market bombing more than 200 Iraqis were killed in bombings and shootings in and around Baghdad. 

On Sept. 16, a "suicide" car bomber struck worshippers leaving a Shiite mosque in Tuz Khormato, 130 km north of Baghdad. Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, speaking in New York, said the bomber was a Syrian, without providing any evidence to support his claim. 

BRITISH BOMBERS EXPOSED 

The Washington Post reported that the two Britons had been accused "of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives."  The governor of Basra, Mohammed al-Waili, said the British agents had been arrested after shooting two policemen and killing one.  "They were driving a civilian car and were dressed in civilian clothes when a shooting took place between them and Iraqi patrols," an official said. "We are investigating and an Iraqi judge is on the case questioning them."

"The men were said to have had guns and explosives with them," the BBC and British papers reported. Paul Wood of the BBC said the two British agents were probably on a covert mission to get intelligence needed to stop further attacks on British troops. "Their weapons, explosives and communications gear are standard kit for British special forces," Wood said.  Wood did not mention if the wigs and Arab disguises are also considered "standard kit" for British special forces. 

However, it seems highly unlikely that the two non-Arab British agents wearing black bushy wigs could have gotten past the front door in any infiltration attempt. Their disguises would have failed to fool any Iraqi who got close enough to speak with them. 

In a statement, British Brigadier John Lorimer said that under Iraqi law the "soldiers" should have been handed over to coalition authorities. When negotiations failed to secure the release of the British agents, a British armored personnel carrier flattened a wall of the prison. The attack on the prison involved a dozen military vehicles and helicopters. The British command was clearly urgently concerned about what the men might have revealed to Iraqi police under interrogation.  Gov. al-Waili called the operation a "barbaric act of aggression." 

While the significance of the British terrorists in disguise was not discussed in the mainstream media, it was more fully investigated by Socialist Worker, an on-line news site of the Socialist Party of Britain.  Sheikh Hassan al-Zarqani, a Basra-based spokesperson for rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, told the Socialist Worker that the two British agents had been armed with explosives and a remote control detonator.  The two bearded British agents had been wearing black wigs and disguised as members of Sadr's militia, the Mehdi Army, when they were caught. This is a commonly employed tactic of "false flag terrorism" often used by the Israeli secret services in the occupied Palestinian territories. 

The Arab disguises are meant to provide eyewitness accounts that whatever terror operation the men were involved in would be reported as having been carried out by Iraqis. 

The incident in Basra, according to Sheikh Hassan, began when a senior official of Sadr's movement, Sheikh Ahmad Fartusi, was arrested on Sunday, Sept. 18.  "We called a protest outside the mayor's office on Monday demanding the Sheikh be released," Hassan said. "This protest was peaceful.  But events in our city took a sinister turn when the police tried to stop two men dressed as members of the Mehdi Army driving near the protest. The men opened fire on the police and passers-by. After a car chase they were arrested," Hassan said. 

"What our police found in their car was very disturbing - weapons, explosives and a remote control detonator," he said. "These are the weapons of terrorists. We believe these soldiers were planning an attack on a market or other civilian targets, and thanks be to God, they were stopped and countless lives were saved. 

"The two men were taken to the police station to answer questions about their activities. That afternoon the British army came in tanks and armored cars demanding the two be released.  The police refused as they were considered to be planning terrorist attacks, and as they were disguised as members of the Mehdi Army, the police wanted to know who their target was. 

"Thousands of people gathered to defend the police station. British troops opened fire and the crowds responded with stones and fire bombs.  Why were these men dressed as Mehdi Army?" Hassan asked. "Why were they carrying explosives and where were they planning to detonate their bomb?  Were they planning an outrage so that they could create tensions with other communities? Were they going to kill innocent people to put the blame on Al Qaida, who do not have any support in our city? 

"The soldiers drove a tank into the police station and threatened to kill the police officers if they did not hand over the two terrorists," Hassan said. "It is only then, to save any further loss of life, that the men were released." 

On Sept. 22, Judge Raghib al-Mudhafar, chief of the Basra Anti-Terrorism Court, reissued homicide arrest warrants for the two British soldiers. Britain says its troops, in disguise or otherwise, are not legally bound by Iraqi law or warrants.  "All British troops in Iraq come under the jurisdiction of Britain," a defense spokesman said in London. 

Five days before the arrest of the two British agents in Basra, Al Jazeera had reported on the growing suspicion that the occupation forces are the real perpetrators of bomb attacks in Iraq in an interview with Iran's top military commander, Brigadier General Mohammad-Baqer Zolqadr. 

Zolqadr said the United States and Israel were behind the so-called sectarian bombing attacks that have killed thousands of civilians in Iraq.

The occupation forces, Zolqadr told senior officials, need these attacks to justify the continuation of their military presence in Iraq. 

"The Americans blame weak and feeble groups in Iraq for insecurity in this country. We do not believe this and we have information that the insecurity has its roots in the activities of American and Israeli spies," Zolqadr said.  "Insecurity in Iraq is a deeply-rooted phenomenon. The root of insecurity in Iraq lies in the occupation of this country by foreigners," Zolqadr said. "If Iraq is to become secure, there will be no room for the occupiers". 

The U.S. wanted to remain in Iraq to "plunder the country's wealth, bring the Middle East under its control, and create security for Israel, which is on the verge of annihilation," according to Zolqadr. 

BALKANIZING IRAQ 

The most obvious strategy of the "false flag" terrorism is to foment civil strife in Iraq to advance a divide and conquer policy known as Balkanization. This strategy is aimed at dividing Iraq into three ethnic statelets, as was done with the former Yugoslavia. British forces have employed "false flag" terror tactics as part of a "divide and conquer" strategy in other conflicts in the past. 

The mainstream news reports of the seemingly senseless terror bombings in Iraq always carry a refrain of explanation pointing to the long-held Zionist strategy of Balkanization in the Middle East, such as: "The overwhelming violence in recent days appeared designed to further split the country along ethnic and religious lines." 

The so-called sectarian bombings in Iraq, however, are never claimed by actual Iraqi organizations. The evidence, rather suggests these are outside agencies, such as the Israeli Mossad and British MI6, working closely with the occupation forces. 

In 1982, Oded Yinon, an Israeli foreign policy advisor, articulated the Zionist strategy to Balkanize the Middle East by breaking up the Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.  "To dissolve Iraq is even more important for us than dissolving Syria," Yinon wrote. "In the short term, it's Iraqi power that constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. The Iran-Iraq war tore Iraq apart and provoked its downfall. All manner of inter-Arab conflict help us and accelerate our goal of breaking up Iraq into small, diverse pieces." 

Yinon's article, "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties," written in Hebrew, appeared in Kivunim (Directions), the journal of the Department of Information of the World Zionist Organization. The article is considered one of the most explicit and detailed statements of Zionist strategy in the Middle East.  The Yinon essay was translated by the late Israel Shahak shortly in 1982 and can be found in Shahak's work entitled "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East." 

The Yinon essay "represents the accurate and detailed plan of the present Zionist regime (of Sharon and Eitan) for the Middle East which is based on the division of the whole area into small states, and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states," Shahak wrote in his forward to the translated article.  The Zionist vision for the Middle East rests on two essential premises: To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. 

An Israeli official was quoted in the July 26, 1982, issue of Newsweek: "Ideally, we'd like to see Iraq disintegrate into a Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni community, each making war on the other." 

"The idea that all the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units, occurs again and again in Israeli strategic thinking," Shahak wrote. "For example, Ze'ev Schiff, the military correspondent for Ha'aretz wrote on June 2, 1982 about the 'best' that can happen for Israeli interests in Iraq: 'The dissolution of Iraq into a Shi'ite state, a Sunni state and the separation of the Kurdish part.'" 

"The strong connection with Neo-Conservative thought in the USA is very prominent, especially in the author's notes," Shahak wrote. "But, while lip service is paid to the idea of the 'defense of the West' from Soviet power, the real aim of the author, and of the present Israeli establishment is clear: To make an Imperial Israel into a world power. In other words, the aim of Sharon is to deceive the Americans after he has deceived all the rest."