NewYork Times August 17, 2003 Christopher Anderson/VII, for The New York Times Now see the dailyoberver.gm and tell me how Yahya operates? Yahya is a tribalist,play the divide and rule game without knowing the best way to do so.I will come on that with another article.Today OPTV is fighting the war against terrorism and we must expose leaders like Yahya to the United States.He was very close to Charles Taylor and Mobuto and is therefore damaged goods for West Africa ARMS AND THE MAN (Page 2 of 11) ''Bout was brilliant,'' Gayle Smith said recently. ''Had he been dealing in legal commodities, he would have been considered one of the world's greatest businessmen. He's a fascinating but destructive character. We were tryi ng to bring peace, and Bout was bringing war.'' C.I.A. and MI6 agents on the ground in Africa first picked up Bout's scent in the early 1990's, when his fleet of planes began crisscrossing the continent. In the early days, they transported gladiolas; later, frozen chickens and then diamonds, mining equipment, Kalashnikov assault rifles, bullets, helicopter gunships and even, Bout says, U.N. peacekeepers, French soldiers and African heads of state. The names of the men Bout came to count as his personal friends and customers included Massoud, Mobutu, Savimbi, Taylor, Bemba. It was not until the summer of 2000 that the N.S.C. realized it had stumbled on not only the most prolific arms trafficking operation in Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan but probably the best connected (and protected) private-weapons transport and brokering network in the world. Smith and others took their information to Richard C. Clarke, then the chief of counterterrorism for the N.S.C. ''Get me a warrant,'' Clarke responded. But because Bout's reputed crimes were committed outside United States borders, the N.S.C. had no U.S. law to use on him. Instead, the N.S.C. initiated an operation that drew on the resources of intelligence agencies in at least seven countries and sparked cabinet-level diplomacy on four continents. Belgium issued its own warrant for Bout's arrest a year later -- not for arms trafficking but for crimes related to money laundering and diamond smuggling. In the end, the pursuit failed. Victor Bout is still at large, a fugitive from international justice. But unlike Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, he lives in plain sight -- in Moscow, under the apparent protection of a post-Communist system that has profited from his activities as much as he has. He has also evaded journalists, U.N. investigators and watchdog organizations like Human Rights Watch. Until now, the only publicly available photo of him was secretly taken by a Belgian journalist in March 2001 on an airstrip in Congo. His only statements have been brief denials of his role in arms trafficking. He walked out of a CNN interview in March 2002. That same month, six weeks after a Los Angeles Times article connected Bout to shipments of arms and recruits to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, he released a statement in which he described himself as a father, husband, entrepreneur -- and a scapegoat. Since then, he has been silent. Though Bout denies his involvement in arms trafficking, he has been persistently and publicly linked to weapons shipments, charges supported by paper and money trails, confessions, eyewitness accounts and multiple intelligence reports. The longer Bout has remained out of the reach of in ternational law, the bigger his legend has grown. In many ways, he is now the public face of a giant international criminal structure. In the eight months between the time I first asked Bout for an interview and when he finally granted it, I came to understand the general shape of the political and criminal twilight that conceals the commerce of arms trafficking. In June, I laid out some of what I believed in a letter. Two days later, Bout called and asked me to come to Moscow. lowers, that's where it all started,'' Chichakli said. It was midnight, and we had moved on from the hotel lounge to an Italian restaurant in downtown Moscow full of people drinking vodka and eating pasta and pizza. Bout ordered a carrot juice and an arugula salad. ''He's a vegetarian,'' Chichakli said. ''He's an ecologist. He believes in saving the rain forest.'' Bout nodded. ''I've been giv en a chance to reinvent myself.'' It was not immediately clear why he had chosen to see me. He seemed intrigued by his legend, yet wanted simultaneously to fan it and diminish it. RELATED ARTICLES Bulgaria Becomes a Weapons Bazaar (August 3, 1998) $ 21 Nations Seek to Limit the Traffic in Light Weapons (July 13, 1998) $ Peru Reporters Say Officials Direct Harassment Effort (July 6, 1998) $ Secret Bosnian Arms Deals (November 10, 1996) $ Find more results for Arms Trafficking and Armament, Defense and Military Forces . TOP MAGAZINE ARTICLES Arms and the Man Bookies in Exile Fiddling With the Reception Lost in the Music The Way We Live Now: Help Wanted BINNEH S MINTEH NE W YORK UNIVSERSITY ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~