Can Moscow exploit its old Iraqi ties?

On 3 June terrorists in Iraq killed one Russian diplomat and kidnapped four others from a Russian Embassy car travelling in Mansur, west Baghdad. Several weeks later, a previously unknown group posted an internet claim that they had killed the abductees. After the Russian Foreign Ministry verified the diplomats' deaths, President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Federal Security Service (Federalnaya sluzhba bezopasnosti: FSB) to "find and destroy the criminals".

The KGB-Iraq connection

Intelligence links between Russia and Iraq date back to 1973, when Nadhim Kazzar, then head of Iraq's General Security, launched a failed coup attempt against then president Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and vice-president Saddam Hussein. In the aftermath, Saddam responded by turning to the Soviet KGB for help in reorganising and modernising Iraq's intelligence agencies. Russian personnel soon began training large numbers of Iraqi military and security personnel.

Bilateral intelligence co-operation declined following Saddam's disastrous invasion of Kuwait and the Soviet Union's disintegration. although Russian intelligence appears to have maintained ties with Iraq at least until the US-led invasion. In March 2003, Russia claimed that Moscow's agents were holding daily meetings with Iraqis. A subsequent US Department of Defense report concluded that Russian agents operating inside the US military had given secret information (albeit incorrect) about pre-invasion planning to the Iraqi government. The Putin administration dismissed these allegations as "baseless".

The Russian government's ability to exploit these connections to "find and destroy" the killers of its embassy employees as well as identify and punish those who ultimately ordered the operation remains uncertain. In Iraq, US and British authorities have largely dismantled Iraq's Saddam-era intelligence networks. For these reasons, Russian officials are seeking assistance from other Muslim governments.

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© 2006 Jane's Information Group
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