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΄Εκθεση
Συνδέει τις Διεθνείς Μεταφορές ΄Οπλων με το «Ισλαμικό Κράτος».

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΄Οπλα  καταγεγραμμένα στους επίσημους καταλόγους
μεταφοράς των πτήσεων της Silk
Way
Airlines εμφανίζονται
στα μέτωπα της Συρίας μήνες μετά την εκφόρτωσή τους στην Τουρκία και τη
Σαουδική Αραβία.

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Journalist Interrogated Fired For Story Linking
CIA And Syria Weapons Flights

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by Tyler Durden, Aug 28, 2017   2.759

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A months-long investigation
which tracked and exposed a massive covert weapons shipment network to terror
groups in Syria via diplomatic flights originating in the Caucuses and Eastern
Europe under the watch of the CIA and other intelligence agencies has
resulted in the interrogation and firing of the Bulgarian journalist who first
broke the story. This comes as the original report is finally breaking
into mainstream international coverage.

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Investigative reporter Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva authored a bombshell report for Trud Newspaper, based in
Sofia, Bulgaria, which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company
was regularly transporting tons of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, United Arab
Emirates (UAE), and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert
program to supply anti-Assad fighters in Syria. Those weapons,
Gaytandzhieva found, ended up in the hands of ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists in
Iraq and Syria.

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While it’s long been
understood that the US-Gulf-NATO coalition arming rebels inside Syria facilitated the rapid rise of the Islamic State as the
group had steady access to a “jihadi Wal-Mart” of weapons (in the
words of one former spy and British diplomat), the Trud
Newspaper report is the first to provide exhaustive documentation detailing
the precise logistical chain of the weapons as they flowed from their country
of origin to the battlefield in Syria and Iraq.Gaytandzhieva even traveled
to Aleppo where she filmed and examined labeled weapons shipping containers
held in underground jihadist storehouses.

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The Bulgaria-based journalist
obtained and published dozens of secret internal memos which were
leaked to her by an anonymous source as part of the report. The leaked
documents appear to be internal communications between the Bulgarian government
and Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Sofia detailing flight plans for Silk Way Airlines,
which was essentially operating an “off the books” weapons transport
service (not subject to inspections or tax under diplomatic cover) for the US
Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), Saudi Arabia, Israel, Germany, Denmark,
and Sweden. Silk Way Airlines has been the subject of other
recent investigations involving weapons
supplies for the Saudi war on Yemen. In addition,
the military monitoring site Balkan Insight has exposed similar weapons cargo
flights in and out of neighboring Serbia.

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Silk Way Airlines flight over Birmingham (UK). Image source: Flickr

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But perhaps the more explosive
finding involves private American companies contracting with the US government
to help train and equip militants in Syria. Aninvestigative series by
Buzzfeed – the first of which was published in 2015 –
named military contractor Purple Shovel LLC as the recipient of two no-bid
contracts totaling more $50 million as part of the US train and equip program
for Syria. Gaytandzhieva’s report definitively links Purple Shovel and
other private American military contractors to the Azerbaijan Silk Way Airlines
shipments. One leaked memo includes a cargo manifest for multiple tons
of anti-tank grenades purchased in Bulgaria by Purple Shovel which were
ostensibly designated for the official consignee – the Ministry of Defense of
Ajerbaijan – but which never made it to Ajerbaijan. The documents, however,
reveal that the military cargo was offloaded at Turkey’s Incirlik air base,
which is one of the US and NATO’s main command centers for covert operations in
Syria.

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Though Gaytandzhieva’s report
is months old and began through a series of smaller investigations, it gained
little traction in Western or international press, even though it was promoted
on social media and discussed among some of the world’s foremost experts on
Syria and the Middle East. However, on Sunday Qatar-based Al Jazeera featured the story while
reporting the shocking news that Gaytandzhieva had been interrogated by
Bulgarian authorities before being fired from her newspaper:

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Gaytandzhieva said on Thursday
in a tweet that she was fired from her job at Trud after she was
interrogated by the Bulgarian national security which tried to find out her
sources.

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She said she first got
suspicious of the weapons transferred to Syria when she found Bulgarian-made
weapons at the hands “terrorists” in Aleppo while reporting on the
Syrian war there.

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She said that she then traced
those weapons to its Bulgarian manufacturer only to find out that those weapons
were legally exported to Saudi Arabia, which in turn supplied it to
“terrorists” in Syria.

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–       Follow

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Dilyana Gaytandzhiev @dgaytandzhieva

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I’ve just got
fired for telling the truth about weapons supplies for#terrorists in #Syria on diplomatic flights https://trud.bg/350-diplomatic-flights-carry-weapons-for-terrorists/ …

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5:47 PM – Aug 24, 2017

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–      350 diplomatic
flights carry weapons for terrorists

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At least 350 diplomatic Silk Way Airlines (an Azerbaijani
state-run company) flights transported weapons for war conflicts across the
world over the last 3 years. The state aircrafts of Azerbaijan…

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trud.bg

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Al Jazeera is now
belatedly highlighting the story in the
midst of the current Qatari-Saudi diplomatic war which has resulted in a
general airing of dirty laundry as each side continues to accuse the other of
supporting terrorism. Regardless, Al Jazeera’s coverage constitutes the first
time this story has entered the mainstream. While we’ve reported the
recent Trump decision to end the CIA covert program of
regime change in Syria, it appears the apparatus for external weapons
shipments to jihadists in Syria remains in place through the continuing Silk
Way Airlines weapons pipeline. As Al Jazeera reports:

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Speaking to Al Jazeera by
phone on Sunday from Bulgaria, Gaytandzhieva said: “Saudi Arabia, UAE and
the US must stop using the cover of Silk Way Airlines diplomatic flights to
supply Eastern European weapons which end up in the hands of terrorists around
the world. Diplomatic flights are exempt from checks and inspection.”

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Tracking weapons from Eastern
Europe to Syrian al-Qaeda: December 2016 Bulgarian news broadcast by Dilyana
Gaytandzhieva. Brief English commentary begins at 1:00 mark. The report
investigates Bulgarian origin rockets and weaponry said to have been in
possession of Nusra Front (AQ in Syria). Leaked documents would later confirm
Bulgarian weapons shipped to Saudi Arabia as part of the covert Syria program.

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Balkan Investigative Reporting
Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)
also carried out their own lengthy investigations which are consistent with
Trud News journalist Gaytandzhieva’s findings. Infographic source: Balkan Insight

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The CIA program relied heavily on US ally Saudi Arabia to arm
anti-Assadjihadists, and while it appears that
the White House recently ended the CIA side of things, there’s no evidence to
suggest that Saudi Arabia or other participating allied countries ever ceased
or even slowed their part of the operations. Also, given that both the CIA and
Pentagon contract with private firms acting as middle men to get weapons to the
Syrian battlefield, it is uncertain if all aspects of the CIA program
have really been shut down. Historically, the CIA has sometimes farmed
out legally questionable activities to private contractors for the sake of‘plausible deniability’.
Furthermore, the Pentagon side of the program, which supplies Kurdish and Arab
groups in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) appears to be ramping up of late.

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Given the latest development
of Trud Newspaper firing
its own journalist and Bulgarian authorities attempting to locate her
sources, it is entirely possible and likely that pressure is building
for Trud to remove the story from its website. The new Al Jazeera
story has brought fresh international attention to Gaytandzhieva’s
findings, which is sure to increase the controversy.

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*****

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Government docs leaked by
hackers (“Anonymous Bulgaria”) reveal weapons pipeline to terrorists
in Syria:

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According to these documents,
Silk Way Airlines offered diplomatic flights to private companies and arms
manufacturers from the US, Balkans, and Israel, as well as to the militaries of
Saudi Arabia, UAE, and US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), and the
military forces of Germany and Denmark in Afghanistan and of Sweden in Iraq.
Diplomatic flights are exempt of checks, air bills, and taxes, meaning that
Silk Way airplanes freely transported hundreds of tons of weapons to different
locations around the world without regulation. They made technical landings
with stays varying from a few hours to up to a day in intermediary locations
without any logical reasons such as needing to refuel the planes.

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U.S. sends $1 billion worth of
weapons

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Among the main customers of
the “diplomatic flights for weapons” service provided by Silk Way Airlines are
American companies, which supply weapons to the US army and US Special
Operations Command. The common element in these cases is that they all supply
non-US standard weapons; hence, the weapons are not used by the US forces.

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According to the register of
federal contracts, over the last 3 years American companies were awarded
$1billion contracts it total under a special US government program for non-US
standard weapon supplies. All of them used Silk Way Airlines for the transport
of weapons. In some cases when Silk Way was short of aircrafts due to a busy
schedule, Azerbaijan Air Force aircrafts transported the military cargo,
although weapons never reached Azerbaijan.

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The documents leaked from the
Embassy include shocking examples of weapon transport. A case in point: on 12th May
2015 an aircraft of Azerbaijan Air Forces carried 7.9 tons of PG-7V and 10 tons
of PG-9V the supposed destination via the route Burgas (Bulgaria)-Incirlik
(Turkey)-Burgas-Nasosny (Azerbaijan). The consignor was the American company
Purple Shovel, and the consignee – the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan.
According to the documents, however, the military cargo was offloaded at
Incirlik military base and never reached the consignee. The weapons were sold
to Purple Shovel by Alguns, Bulgaria, and manufactured by Bulgaria’s VMZ
military plant.

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According to the federal
contracts registry, in December of 2014 USSOCOM signed a $26.7 million contract
with Purple Shovel. Bulgaria was indicated as the country of origin of the
weapons.

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US covert program sent
Bulgarian weapons to Al Qaeda via private military contractor 

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On 6 June 2015, a 41-year
old American national Francis Norvello, an employee of Purple Shovel, was
killed in a blast when a rocket-propelled grenade malfunctioned at a military
range near the village of Anevo in Bulgaria. Two other Americans and two
Bulgarians were also injured. The US Embassy to Bulgaria then released a
statement announcing that the U.S. government contractors were working on a
U.S. military program to train and equip moderate rebels in Syria. Which
resulted in the U.S. Ambassador to Sofia to be immediately withdrawn from her
post. They very same weapons as those supplied by Purple Shovel were not used
by moderate rebels in Syria. In December of last year while reporting on the
battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9
underground warehoused full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of
origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria
designated as a terrorist organization by the UN).

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Saudi Arabia – sponsor and
arms distributor

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Besides the USA, another
country that has purchased huge quantities of Eastern-European weapons and
exported them on Silk Way Airlines diplomatic flights is Saudi Arabia. In 2016
and 2017, there were 23 diplomatic flights carrying weapons from Bulgaria,
Serbia and Azerbaijan to Jeddah and Riyadh. The consignees were VMZ military
plant and Transmobile from Bulgaria, Yugoimport from Serbia, and CHIHAZ from
Azerbaijan.

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The Kingdom does not buy those
weapons for itself, as the Saudi army used only western weapons and those
weapons are not compatible with its military standard. Therefore, the weapons
transported on diplomatic flights end up in the hands of the terrorist
militants in Syria and Yemen that Saudi Arabia officially admits supporting.

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Report links internationally
transported weapons to ISIS

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On 5 March 2016, an Azerbaijan
Air Force aircraft carried 1700 pcs. RPG-7 (consignor: Ministry of Defense of
Azerbaijan) and 2500 pcs. PG-7VM (consignor: Transmobile Ltd., Bulgaria) for
the Defense Ministry of Saudi Arabia. Diplomatic flights from Burgas Airport to
Prince Sultan Airport on 18 and 28 February 2017 each carried a further 5080
psc. 40 mm PG-7V for RPG-7 and 24 978 psc. RGD-5. The weapons were exported by
Transmobile, Bulgaria to the Ministry of Defense of Saudi Arabia. Such
munitions and RPG-7 originating in Bulgaria can often be seen in videos filmed
and posted by the Islamic State on their propaganda channels.

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Weapons on Silk Way flight
manifests appear on the Syrian battlefield months after arrival in Turkey and
Saudi Arabia

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The 41.2-ton cargo from Baku
and Belgrade included: 7.62 mm cartridges, 12 pcs. sniper rifles, 25 pcs. M12
“Black Spear” caliber 12.7x108mm, 25 psc. RBG 40×46 mm/6M11, and 25 pcs. Coyote
machine gun 12.7×108 mm with tripods. The same heavy machine gun appeared in
videos and photos posted online by militant groups in Idlib and the province of
Hama in Syria a few months later. The aircraft also carried: 1999 psc. M70B1
7.62×39 mm and 25 psc. M69A 82 mm. On 26 February 2016, a video featuring same
M69A 82 mm weapons was posted on YouTube by a militant group calling itself
Division 13 and fighting north of Aleppo.

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Interestingly, the aircraft
that carried the same type of weapons landed in Diyarbakir (Turkey), 235 km
away from the border with Syria. Another type of weapon, RBG 40 mm/6M11, which
was from the same flight and supposedly destined for Congo too, appeared in a
video of the Islamic Brigade of Al Safwa in Northern Aleppo.

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After Turkey, the aircraft
landed in Saudi Arabia and remained there for a day. Afterwards it landed in
Congo and Burkina Faso. A week later, there was an attempted military coup in
Burkina Faso.

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