“The Lone Gladio is a must-read for everyone who is interested in the New Great Game in the Eurasian Balkans.”
By Christoph Germann
Sibel Edmonds’ new novel The Lone Gladio takes the reader on an exciting journey across the globe from Northern Cyprus and Azerbaijan to Southeast Asia and the belly of the beast in the United States. As seemingly disconnected plot strands are brilliantly woven together, we get to see how one of the most important clandestine operations of our time works and who is pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Operation Gladio B is the preferred weapon of “the company” (Pentagon, NATO, CIA & MI6) in the geopolitical struggle against Russia and China. This struggle is in full swing in many parts of the world but since the New Great Game in the Eurasian Balkans is of prime importance, the shadowy paramilitary Gladio network is particularly active in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey. The modus operandi of the company is being highlighted on the first few pages of The Lone Gladio, when Gladio operative Greg McPhearson (OG 68) enters an underground operations center beneath a mosque in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to prepare the next terrorist attack on Russian soil.[1] As OG 68 and his colleagues observe how “their” Imam is turning a desperate Chechen widow into a suicide bomber, the reader is left wondering if some of these “black widows”, who have committed many of the worst terror attacks in Russia, had gotten a similar treatment.[2] But one thing is for sure: Azerbaijan plays a central role in Gladio B and other U.S./NATO intelligence operations in the region.[3] Therefore, it would come as no real surprise if Baku was indeed hosting an operations center to coordinate the “planning and preparation for some of the most elaborately staged terror attacks in Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia.”[4] Interestingly enough, the operations center in The Lone Gladio is connected with the U.S. military attaché building and the significance of this location is revealed later on in the book.
Another main conduit for the Gladio B operations is Turkey and Sibel Edmonds hints at Turkey’s key role in fostering the Islamist insurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus, when Colonel Winston Tanner (OG 52) explains to Greg McPhearson who is going to take credit for the attack in Russia:
The colonel nodded. “Our Chechen base currently is divided. Those we no longer need will take credit for this attack. Those we keep will run the postexecution show from their HQ in Ankara.”
Greg paused. “How do we ensure silence of the other Chechen faction?”
“There won’t be any left, at least not with information or ties to us. We’re taking out five, three of them in Turkey – blamed on the FSB. We leave a trail of breadcrumbs straight to the Russians. They can blow off steam and throw out allegations, but they won’t get far. They don’t have our media capabilities.”[5]
In recent years, Russian intelligence agents have assassinated many Chechens abroad, most of them in Turkey.[6] So nobody would believe the Russians even if they were actually innocent. The Lone Gladio is thought-provoking from the very first page and the blurry line between fiction and reality encourages the reader to take a closer at publicly available information about the actors, locations and operations mentioned by Sibel Edmonds in her novel. Even small details deserve closer attention. For example, when Georgia’s Poti Sea Port is named as a transit point for Afghan heroin in the drug trafficking network of the company,[7] this is hardly accidental.[8]
As FBI analyst Elsie Simon, expert in the Turkey-Central Asian-Caucasus nexus, comes across some very explosive documents, we get know more about Operation Gladio B than ever before.[9] Among others, the documents reveal Georgia’s role in all of this. NATO’s proxy in the South Caucasus has been instrumental in supporting the “Chechen rebels” and from time to time this is being exposed. Two years ago, the so-called Lopota incident rocked the country. After 14 people had been killed during clashes between Georgian security forces and Chechen fighters, Georgian officials claimed that they had thwarted an attempt by insurgents to enter Georgia from Dagestan. But an investigation by Georgia‘s human rights ombudsman later concluded that the Chechens “had been recruited in Europe by Georgian Interior Ministry officials, brought to Tbilisi, and trained over a period of several months in the use of weaponry with the intention of enabling them to cross the border from Georgia into Chechnya to join the ranks of the Islamic insurgency.”[10] Readers of The Lone Gladio will realize that operations like this are not conducted by the respective puppet government on its own, as we are often led to believe. Instead, Pentagon, NATO, CIA and MI6 are pulling the strings behind the scenes.
This rule applies also when it comes to one of the most important company assets with regard to Operation Gladio B: Fethullah Gülen. CIA puppet Gülen and his vast movement play a decisive role in furthering the Islamization of Central Asia and the Caucasus region. When Greg McPhearson makes his way to the company’s main mullah training center, which is located in Houston and operated by the Gülen movement, he tells us how this works:
The true purpose of this company-owned center was to groom and train selected candidates as mullahs, Muslim preachers, who then were assigned to specific regions and nations such as Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Xinjiang, Here they would recruit, indoctrinate, brainwash and train fanatic Islamists to be used in myriad terror operations designed and executed by the company whenever needed.[11]
FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has repeatedly highlighted the dubious activities of the Gülen movement in the Eurasian Balkans, where Gülen’s schools have regularly sheltered CIA agents.[12] Given the large number of fighters from Central Asia and the Caucasus among the “Syrian rebels”, this modus operandi seems to be still going strong. Especially the Chinese government is currently concerned about the brainwashing of young Muslims and has therefore launched a crackdown on madrassas in the far western region of Xinjiang.[13] But as long as the company tries to implement its East Turkestan project, there will be no end to the violence in Xinjiang.[14]
The Lone Gladio is a must-read for everyone who is interested in the New Great Game in the Eurasian Balkans. Sibel Edmonds has written an eye-opening book, which sheds light on Operation Gladio B and provides much-needed information to understand current developments in Central Asia, the Caucasus and beyond.
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*This review was originally written and published here @ The New Great Game.
**Visit these links to purchase The Lone Gladio in Kindle, paperback and Nook formats. Or you can purchase a signed copy from the author at The Lone Gladio website
Notes:
[1] Sibel Edmonds, The Lone Gladio (Bend: Sibel Edmonds, 2014) p. 10.
[2] Jim Heinz, “’Black widows’ tied to decade of terror in Russia,” Associated Press, 21 January 2014: http://news.yahoo.com/39-black-widows-39-tied-decade-terror-russia-155912772–spt.html.
[3] Christoph Germann, “The New Great Game Round-Up #39,” Boiling Frogs Post, 9 February 2014: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/02/09/the-new-great-game-round-up-february-9-2014/.
[4] Ibid., Edmonds p.14.
[5] Ibid., Edmonds pp. 14-15.
[6] Sibel Edmonds, “BFP Exclusive: US-NATO-Chechen Militia Joint Operations Base,” Boiling Frogs Post, 22 November 2011: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/11/22/bfp-exclusive-us-nato-chechen-militia-joint-operations-base/.
[7] Ibid., Edmonds p. 146.
[8] “Some 100 kg heroin revealed in Poti port,” Trend News Agency, 3 June 2010: http://en.trend.az/azerbaijan/politics/1698876.html.
[9] Ibid., Edmonds p. 185.
[10] “Mastermind Behind Georgian-Chechen Shoot-Out Still Not Identified,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 4 September 2013: http://www.rferl.org/content/caucasus-report-georgia-chechen-shoot-out-anniversary-mastermind/25095633.html.
[11] Ibid., Edmonds p. 307.
[12] Sibel Edmonds, “Turkish Intel Chief Exposes CIA Operations via Islamic Group in Central Asia,” Boiling Frogs Post, 6 January 2011: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/01/06/turkish-intel-chief-exposes-cia-operations-via-islamic-group-in-central-asia/.
[13] “China says ‘rescues’ more children from Xinjiang religious schools,” Reuters, 14 September 2014: http://news.yahoo.com/china-says-rescues-more-children-xinjiang-religious-schools-035133611.html.
[14] Scott Neuman, “China: ‘Serious’ Terrorist Attack Kills 50 In Xinjiang,” NPR, 26 September 2014: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/09/26/351716057/china-serious-terrorist-attack-kills-50-in-xinjiang.