How Soviet residents first encountered Islamist terrorists: Special operation in Beirut

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For a long time, the Kremlin skillfully maneuvered between numerous Islamist groups in the Middle East, but the fall of 1985 turned everything upside down. The terrorists took several hostages and made demands. In the ensuing confrontation, the KGB found out what the price of Arab "friendship" is.

East is a delicate matter

In the history of states located in the Middle East, it is difficult to find even a small time period when it was calm there. Since the time of the ancient civilizations of Assyria and Babylon, this land has been blazing with the fire of endless wars.

The situation did not change even later. In the mid-eighties of the last century, the territory of Lebanon became the field of bloody battles. Numerous terrorist organizations of every taste and color came together there for life and death. Here, Christian Maronites, Palestinians, Shiite militants from Amal and Hezbollah, Druze and other “caring” terrorists tried to win a place in the sun. Moreover, each movement entrenched itself in a certain part of the long-suffering Lebanon and periodically tried to chop off a piece of foreign territory for itself. Since Western states also got into that confrontation, soon the militants had a favorite pastime - the kidnapping of Europeans.

In the "aspen nest" of the USSR, far from the last role was assigned. Officially, the Kremlin supported Syria in its fight against terrorists based in Lebanon. But, as you know, no one canceled the double game, so the Chekists tried to maintain working relations with other parties to the conflict. Tacit support was enjoyed by Yasser Arafat, a "friend" of the Soviet Union.

Autumn 1985 was especially tense. The fighting took place almost throughout Lebanon. Not a single person who was there could feel safe. Including citizens of the USSR. But the Kremlin did not believe that the militants would dare to challenge him. And I was wrong. At the end of September, right outside the embassy, unknown persons kidnapped four citizens of the USSR: two KGB officers Oleg Spirin and Valery Myrikov, doctor Nikolai Svirsky and consular officer Arkady Katkov. Katkov tried to resist masked people with machine guns, so he received a gunshot wound in the leg.

When the KGB learned about the incident, no one considered the fact of the abduction. “Upstairs” felt that they simply wanted to rob the Soviet citizens. True, the kidnappers soon came out of the shadows themselves. The forces of Khaled bin el-Walid announced that they had people. Interestingly, until that moment, no one in the KGB had any idea that an Islamic terrorist group with that name was operating in Lebanon.

The militants did not beat around the bush. They bluntly stated that all Russians are enemies of Islam and, contrary to promises, are trying to help Syrian President Hafez Assad establish his power in Lebanon, while destroying true Muslims. At the end of the statement, the terrorists demanded that Moscow order Assad to cease hostilities in Lebanon, and then liquidate the Soviet embassy in Beirut. If the Kremlin refuses, the hostages will die. Soon, local media received photographs showing the abducted citizens of the USSR with pistols pointed to their temples.

Terrorists have declared war on the Soviet Union. Now it was the Kremlin's turn to strike back.

Chess game with human lives

First of all, the Soviet authorities tried to enlist the support of Iran, Jordan and Libya. Representatives of these countries have promised help, but this was limited. No one wanted to get into a hornet's nest. Since there was no time to wait, the KGB officers got down to business. In a short time they managed to find out that in fact two organizations are behind the kidnapping - Hezbollah and Fatah. Moreover, the capture of Soviet citizens took place with the blessing of Sheikh Fadlallah and representatives of the Iranian clergy.

It became clear that Yasser Arafat, who controlled Fatah (and at the same time the PLO - the Palestine Liberation Organization), was involved in the incident. And although he did not play any important role for Moscow, after the defeat of the Palestinians in Lebanon, the authorities tried not to lose sight of him. But, as time has shown, I still overlooked it. As for Arafat, he decided on a double game for a very banal reason - the leader of the Palestinian militants believed that the USSR had betrayed him when he began to help Hafez Assad.

One of the residents of the intelligence of the USSR Yuri Perfiliev in his book “Terror. Beirut. Hot October "recalled that it was" friend "Arafat who personally ordered the capture of Soviet citizens. At the same time, he behaved so cynically that immediately after the Kremlin learned about the hostages, he declared that the Soviet Union was a real friend of all Arabs. And so Yasser promised that he would make every effort to free innocent people. Soon, the leader of the Palestinian militants issued a statement that he had managed to cope with the problem.

The prisoners will be released for one hundred thousand dollars, which he has already paid. Then, in a short period of time, Arafat made statements several times and the amount of the ransom was constantly changing upwards, naturally, and reached the mark of almost fifteen million dollars.

The Soviet embassy pretended to believe Arafat's words. In fact, the Chekists tried with all their might to find out that the terrorists were holding captives. Therefore, the embassy staff had to respond to every phone call, which spoke about the discovery of an unidentified corpse. The KGB believed that even a deceased hostage would be able to give at least some clue.

Cryptographers did not sit idle either. They processed a gigantic amount of information, passing on one or another order from Moscow to agents in the field. True, the KGB did not pay much attention to the Kremlin, since they had a poor idea of the true state of affairs in Beirut.

Resident Yuri Perfiliev played an important role. Yuri Nikolaevich, through his agents, managed to contact one of the Hezbollah leaders and arrange a meeting. But first, he and his colleagues went to an abandoned stadium, where a corpse was found. Arkady Katkov was identified immediately. Due to a wound in the leg, he developed gangrene and the head of the Hezbollah special services, Imad Mughniya, took him to the stadium. There he shot from a machine gun. According to agents, Mugnia, whom everyone called Hyena, wanted to release the wounded prisoner, but did not do this for political reasons. Hyena was afraid that the USSR would perceive this as a manifestation of weakness. This gesture proved to the KGB that it would definitely not be possible to come to an agreement with the terrorists in an amicable way.

Soon, through agents, the KGB officers found out that the terrorists, along with the hostages, had settled in the Shatila camp, and that Palestinian refugees had provided assistance to them. The Chekists did not have the opportunity to storm the camp, so they had to find another way out. It was necessary to buy time. Mikhail Gorbachev, who at the time was the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, contacted Assad and asked him to fulfill the demands of the terrorists and stop hostilities in Lebanon. In fact, the Syrian leader had no choice, he agreed. The terrorists were satisfied with this, they decided to no longer play with fire and free the captives, but Arafat intervened. He, as they say, lost his sense of reality and decided, since it was possible to achieve these requirements, it is possible to squeeze other concessions out of the USSR.

Yasir contacted his people and ordered to keep the captives further. Lebanese military counterintelligence officers managed to intercept his conversation and reported this to the embassy. Next, the "friend" himself got in touch, who demanded that Damascus withdraw all the troops based near Beirut. Assad agreed. But the prisoners were still not released. And then Perfiliev still managed to meet with Sheikh Fadalalla. In the conversation, the resident said that the USSR did not have infinite patience and, if necessary, that the terrorists would feel the full power of the state on themselves.

The religious leader of Hezbollah replied that everything is in the hands of Allah. And then Perfiliev decided to go for broke. He told the sheikh that the KGB knew the names of the terrorists who had kidnapped people. Moreover, Yuri Nikolayevich said that "quite by accident" some Soviet missile could unexpectedly fall on, say, Qom, a city sacred to the Shiites located in Iran. Another option: the conditional SS-18 "by mistake" will hit another religious center of Muslims - the city of Mashhad. Other options are also possible. These glories Fadlallah could no longer ignore. The Sheikh realized that Arafat and his entourage were playing. After a short silence, the Hezbollah religious leader replied that he would do everything in his power to release the hostages as quickly as possible. On this, the resident and the sheikh said goodbye.

According to one version, this was the end of the KGB special operation. The terrorists released the hostages. But there is another version, which is much tougher. The residents really found out who was behind the kidnapping and decided to act. Soon the KGB received a complete list of all relatives (names, surnames and places of residence) of the terrorists. The brothers of Hyena's closest assistants were captured first. And a few days later, Imad Mugniya found one of them at the door of his own house. The man was dead. His throat was slit and his penis was cut off. There was a note on the corpse, which said that such a fate would befall all relatives of the terrorists if Soviet citizens were not free. Then the brother of another of the militants was killed.

The situation is out of control. Arafat, like all his assistants, panicked. None of the terrorists expected such a retaliatory strike from the Soviet Union. And almost a month after the capture, the captives were released.

Whether this is true or not, it will not be possible to find out, at least now, since all documents on that special operation are classified. But the fact remains that on October 30 the hostages were brought to the gates of the Soviet embassy. In that fight, the Soviet residents proved to be stronger than their Islamist opponents. And Arafat and his terrorist friends realized that it was better to play fair with the USSR, otherwise the next time it would be impossible to get off with fear.