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Destabilization
was the aim of the terror camps in Australia
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By
Kazi Mahmood, IOL South East Asia correspondent
KUALA
LUMPUR, December 2 (IslamOnline) - Terror camps existed for decades in
Australia and were used to train rebels and their operatives in bids
to overthrow legally elected regimes in Africa and the Indian Ocean, a
former mercenary told IslamOnline Monday, December 2.
The
mercenary, a Mauritian born citizen currently living in Europe and
calling himself Zafarel, told IslamOnline that such terror camps
existed well before the end of the “cold war” between the United
States and Russia.
He
said opponents to legally elected regimes in Southern Africa and the
Indian Ocean were given military training there to ferment “coup
d’etats” in the African subcontinent.
Zafarel’s
comments came after an Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning
Herald claimed Saturday, November 30, that would-be terrorists
linked to the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) conducted paramilitary training
camps in Australia.
The
paper alleged that the JI targeted university students as recruits
adding that Abu Bakar Basyir, the Islamic leader in detention in
Indonesia for alleged terror links, “formed a secretive circle to
recruit and preach his message.”
It
also claimed that a ranch was used for paramilitary training in
Western Australia, south of the state capital Perth, indicating that
Muslims were using the Australian soil for terror activities outside
Australia and possibly to strike targets within Australia altogether.
Zafarel,
a Catholic of African origin said the camps existed alongside those
that were in operations in South Africa, Namibia and Rhodesia (now
Zimbabwe) during the days of the apartheid rule in South Africa.
The
camps were either ranches or remote “military camps” controlled by
“western intelligentsias and mercenaries close to Bob Denard, the
Belgian mercenary.
Denard
in the 1960’s and 1980’s wrecked havoc through Africa and the
Indian Ocean with his guerilla tactic methods of overthrowing
governments,” Zafarel told IslamOnline.
Denard
is credited installation of Mobutu Seseseku as President of Zaire,
known as Congo at that time. He also dislodged Ahmad Abdallah as
president of the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean though he later
allied with the latter.
He
also attempted on several occasions to overthrow the government of
Albert Rene in the Seychelles Islands, a neighboring nation to the
Comoros where Libya had huge influence.
Zafarel
added though the mercenaries did not get the official approval of the
Australian or South Africa regimes of that time, the training did go
on and were sometimes handled by “white” operatives belonging to
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the South African
intelligentsia.
He
did not rule out the possible role of the Mossad, Israel’s secret
service, as well as that of the French Department General Service
Exterieurs (DGSE) in the training of elements who acted against
Socialist regimes in the Indian Ocean in particular.
Destabilization
was the aim of the “military” camps in Australia and their main
targets were either socialist regimes or pro-Islamic elements in the
southern African-Indian Ocean region.
“These
people were also trained to “attack” pro-Libyan and Muslim
elements in the Indian Ocean as well as in Zanzibar and Tanzania,
Mauritius, the Seychelles and South Africa,” Zafarel concluded.
