In an extraordinary but little-noticed public rebuke, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has condemned Iran’s supreme religious leader and president for “threatening Israel’s existence” in “offensive and inflammatory” comments about the Jewish state. 

Ban’s rare public criticism on Friday did not noticeably cool the increasingly hostile public exchanges between Tehran and Jerusalem. On Tuesday, Iran’s mission to the United Nations complained about the “irony” of the U.N. leader’s failure to condemn Israeli officials for employing similar rhetoric. 

In Friday’s statement, Ban singled out Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for their recent comments. 

---

"The Secretary-General is dismayed by the remarks threatening Israel’s existence attributed over the last two days to the Supreme Leader and the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran," Ban wrote. "The Secretary-General condemns these offensive and inflammatory statements. 

"The Secretary-General believes that all leaders in the region should use their voices at this time to lower, rather than to escalate, tensions.  In accordance with the United Nations Charter, all members must refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State." 

The condemnation, which didn't get much attention, went beyond any statement by Ban or previous secretaries-general on the tensions between Israel and Iran, an indication, say U.S. officials, that the U.N is taking Iran's anti-Israeli rhetoric seriously. 

Apparently stung by the criticism, Iran on Tuesday wrote to the U.N. Security Council that Israeli officials have recently threatened to bomb Iran's nuclear program. It also states that the U.N. Security Council and "other relevant organs of the United Nations" have had "no reaction" to Israeli threats and in some cases have "aligned themselves with such statements." 

The diplomatic equivalent of a shouting match began Thursday with comments by Khamenei on Quds Day, when Iran annually pledges solidarity with Palestinian groups and demands an end to Israeli control of Jerusalem. 

More world coverage from NBCNews.com

Ex-Israeli intel chief speaks out on Iran strikes

Q&A: NBC's Richard Engel answers questions about Syria

Reports: Kim Jong Un will travel to Iran

Fears grow of Israel-Iran missile shootout

"The light of hope will shine on the Palestinian issue, and this Islamic land will certainly be returned to the Palestinian nation, and the superfluous and fake Zionist [regime] will disappear from the landscape," the 72-year-old cleric was quoted as saying. 

On the same day, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that while "there are risks” in an Israeli attack on Iran, “It's infinitely more dangerous, complicated, complex and costly in human lives and resources to deal with a nuclear Iran in the future.” His comments echoed those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who suggested on Aug. 1 that a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program may be imminent.  "Time to resolve this issue peacefully is running out," he said. 

On Friday, Ahmadinejad, speaking on Iranian television, made some of his most extreme comments about Israel since becoming president of the Islamic Republic. 

“The Zionist regime and the Zionists are a cancerous tumor. Even if one cell of them is left in one inch of (Palestinian) land, in the future this story (of Israel’s existence) will repeat,” Ahmadinejad said. "The nations of the region will soon finish off the usurpers in the Palestinian land." 

In responding to Ban’s statement on Tuesday, Iran's deputy ambassador to the U.N., Eshagh Al Habib, wrote to the U.N. Security Council to complain that Israel has repeatedly made threatening comments against Iran without being subjected to similar condemnation. 

"The Islamic Republic of Iran expresses, once again, its deep concern over, and strong condemnation of. such a provocative, unwarranted and irresponsible statement by (the Israeli) Prime Minister and Defense Minister as well as other officials of (the) Israeli regime (who) frequently threaten Iran with military strike," wrote Habib.

He closed with a subtle but apparent slap at Ban: "The irony is that there has been no reaction on the part of Western leaders and/or relevant organs of the United Nations, including the United Nations Security Council, vis-a-vis the inflammatory remarks and baseless allegations leveled against Iran's peaceful nuclear program,” Habib wrote. “Rather some even spare no occasion to align themselves with such statements." 

Diplomatic sources say that the rhetoric is likely to increase despite Ban's condemnation. They note that Ahmadinejad is likely to condemn Israel even more forcibly next month when he is expected in New York for the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. It will be the Iranian president's last speech to the General Assembly as Iran's president before his term runs out in June.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.

 

 

A terror attack Monday on a Yemeni military parade rehearsal that killed scores occurred amid increasing cooperation between the Yemen and U.S. governments, with the latter stepping up assistance to the Yemeni military and regularly targeting purported terrorist cells with drone strikes.

The cooperation reflects a growing  belief in U.S. national security circles that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemeni al-Qaida affiliate, is now a bigger and more dangerous threat than the central al-Qaida group in Pakistan. (AQAP on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack on the military parade and a shooting that targeted U.S. military trainers in the country. There were apparently no injuries in the second incident.)

The cooperation is not limited to counter-terrorism. The U.S. is openly helping the new Yemeni government in counterinsurgency efforts against an AQAP-affiliated group, Ansar al-Sharia, in the south of the country.  The assistance includes “a small contingent” of military trainers and intelligence officers assisting the Yemeni forces.

---

The presence of the American personnel in Yemen is raising concerns that Washington risks opening another front in the war against al-Qaida before it has fully extricated itself from long, bloody conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the AQAP’s successes in recent months give Washington little choice but to increase support for the new Yemeni government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

“AQAP’s enhanced footprint in southern Yemen increases the chances that the group will establish a regional safe haven,” said the official. “This would be a dangerous development because AQAP’s anti-government fight and its terrorist plotting against the West are its two main goals. Unless its gains are reversed, AQAP will have more flexibility to conduct external attacks from a position of strength.”

The Yemeni government position is about survival. Like Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Yemen is under new management, after former President Ali Abdullah al-Saleh’s replacement by Hadi, his former deputy, in February.

Hadi’s position is precarious. Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist insurgent group, is trying to further destabilize the water-starved, tribal-riven state, with the ultimate goal of toppling his government.

Related story

'Massacre" as suicide bomber targets military parade rehearsal in Yemen

But Hadi’s  increasing reliance on U.S. help has likewise caused him some difficulties, triggering protests among middle- and upper middle-class Yemeni youth who are resentful over the U.S. role in the country, particularly the drone strikes and surveillance.

Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst, said the deaths of nearly 100 Yemeni soldiers in Monday’s bombing are likely to bring two countries’ counter terrorism efforts closer.

“Hadi's rise has probably brought greater legitimacy to cooperation with the U.S.,” said Leiter. “… The president (Hadi) and elements of the security and defense establishment cooperate with the U.S. but want to keep that relatively quiet in order to avoid enflaming the domestic population.  .. . And, frankly, with horrific attacks like today, U.S. assistance often becomes more rather than less welcome.”

A Yemeni official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the press on security operations, contended that  “broad cooperation” with the U.S. is necessary and marks a “new level” of friendly relations between the two countries. He said the U.S. role in Yemen is limited in terms of numbers, but significant in helping the government turn back Ansar al-Sharia, which he characterized as “militants, drug dealers and foreign groups.”

'Intelligence, satellite images and technical advice'
“The U.S. is providing intelligence information, satellite images and technical advice” valuable in both  counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts, said the official. Both the U.S. intelligence community and the Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC, are involved. He emphasized there are “no boots on the ground” fighting with Yemeni forces.

Neither the U.S. nor Yemeni official would put numbers on the U.S. involvement. Nor would the Yemeni  deny the presence of CIA officers on the ground.

The most high profile product of this cooperation has been the drone attacks on both counterterrorism and counterinsurgency targets. High profile attacks have killed three top AQAP officials in the past eight months, but there also have been an increasing number of attacks on lesser figures and even suspected gatherings of terrorists. The attacks, said the Yemeni official, have taken place “all over the country.”

In September, apparently helped by material uncovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, U.S. drones killed two American citizens in Kashef, about 85 miles east of the capital, Sanaa. The dead were Anwar al-Awlaki, an AQAP leader blamed for recruiting other Americans to the group’s violent cause, and Samir Khan, co-editor of “Inspire,” a magazine whose articles included “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

Then, earlier this month, the director of AQAP’s external operations, Fahd al Quso, was similarly killed by a drone attack in a remote mountain valley -- his whereabouts reportedly exposed by a British-Saudi-U.S. undercover intelligence operation. The penetration of AQAP by an informant  also resulted in the interception of a new, more sophisticated  version of the underwear bomb previously used unsuccessfully  to try to down U.S. airliners. (Yemeni intelligence, said the Yemeni official, had “no role” in that operation and was unaware of it.)

By some estimates, the tempo of the drone strikes against AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia is now even greater than in Pakistan, with the number of attacks in May surpassing even the most intense month of attacks against al-Qaida central in Pakistan. According to the “Long War Journal” website, which uses local reporting to track Predator strikes, 30 AQAP fighters (and seven civilians) have been killed in five drone strikes in the past 10 days alone. (Both U.S. and Yemeni officials say that such local reports are often inaccurate or exaggerated.)

The larger concern in terms of U.S. involvement may be the counterinsurgency effort. The Los Angeles Times reported  last week that at least 20 U.S. Special Operations troops are using satellite imagery, drone video, eavesdropping systems and other technical means to help pinpoint targets for the Yemeni military offensive that’s currently under way in the south. 

The Yemeni official would only say that targeting is “very selective” and that “No Americans are fighting on the side of the Yemenis,” a point on which U.S. officials agree.

While the Yemeni official said the offensive has made great strides recently, there have been setbacks, including the killing of 32 Yemeni soldiers on May 7 when AQAP overran a Yemeni position. That was the deadliest single encounter for government forces in the war with AQAP until Monday’s attack.

The Yemeni official said that the public is supportive of both operations, despite a social media protest by the country’s youth that has drawn some attention.

He claimed that no civilians have been killed in the drone strikes and stated that that care has been taken to strike at times and places where only AQAP and its allies are present.

There’s no doubt that U.S. cooperation -- and the drone strikes—will continue. The U.S. wants to kill Ibrihim Hassan Al-Asiri, the AQAP’s expert bomb-maker, before he trains others in his craft. 

But the mere presence of U.S. military personnel in the country carries risk of a confrontation that could quickly escalate. This weekend, for example, a local Yemeni newspaper reported unidentified gunmen opened fire on a car that belonged to U.S. military trainers as they left the tourist al-Hodeida Land Resort in the western part of the country. None of the Americans were believed to have been injured.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Pakistan blocks Twitter -- but fails to stop tweets
• NATO summit prompts little buzz on streets of Kabul
• Chinese fishermen held by North Korea released
• US student dies after going swimming at Scottish beach
• Olympic torchbearers race to cash in
• A random act of kindness lifts spirits in London

 

 

By Robert Windrem
NBC News

With the successful Predator attack on al-Qaida operative Aslam Awan inside Pakistan, al-Qaida has lost, in the words of a senior U.S. official last night, "a senior external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces al-Qaida's thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians."

Awan is believed to have been somewhat close to Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida since shortly after Osama Bbn Laden's death on May 1. Although U.S. officials would not place a number on Awan's rank within al-Qaida, he was believed to have been involved in planning attacks, putting him in the high command.

But what of Zawahiri? The U.S. pursuit of him remains a high priority. (And his killing or capture would be regarded as a political coup for the Obama administration in a campaign year.) The U.S. has targeted Zawahiri five times by his own count, going back to the days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

---

A U.S. counterterrorism official tells NBC News that there's limited information on the status of U.S. planning against Zawahiri. "It's certainly not impossible" for an attack on Zawahiri to be attempted. "But he has clearly hung very low since May, with fundamentally no communications," said the official.

Evan Kohlmann, MSNBC analyst and counterterrorism consultant, reports that since bin Laden's death, al-Qaida's media arm has released eight recordings of al-Zawahiri, not all of which can be easily dated. At least one and possibly two of them were probably recorded prior to bin Laden being killed, then released after his death. The most recent one came out on December 1. In that video, Zawahiri boasted that al-Qaida had seized aid worker Warren Weinstein, a 70-year-old American, in Lahore last August. There's been no proof of life regarding Weinstein since then.

Those recordings are often hand-carried through a network of couriers to ensure Zawahiri's security.

From the archives: Bin Laden dead: Who will lead al-Qaeda?

By Robert Windrem
NBC News

Police raids in Bangkok, Thailand, which netted a suspected Hezbollah operative Thursday and the makings of bomb-making materials Saturday, represent "one of the most credible Israel-focused threats overseas in a long time," said NBC News analyst Roger Cressey, and "very much the real deal" adds NBC News analyst Mike Leiter.

The two analysts referred primarily to the Saturday raid where police confiscated more than 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate found in a warehouse in Samut Sakhon, on the western outskirts of Bangkok.

Officials in the U.S. and Israel said Hezbollah could have been planning an attack on the Israeli embassy in downtown Bangkok, near various tourist sites, say Cressey and Leiter. Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Islamist group in Lebanon backed by Syria and Iran, is on the U.S. blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations.

The raid caused both the U.S. and Israel to issue public travel warnings urging their citizens to be cautious.

---

Information that led to the raid was relayed to Thai police by Israeli intelligence. Police detained a Swedish national of Lebanese origin with alleged links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants on Thursday. The intelligence indicated a plot could be carried out between between Friday and Sunday.

Cressey said the fear was that Hezbollah was constructing a large bomb that would have caused a devastating blast in an area that many Americans visit.

"There would have been a lot of collateral damage," said Cressey, a former member of the U.S. National Security Council staff.

Moreover, both analysts note they've been told the threat may not be over, that at least one other operative is being sought. Leiter, former director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, says there is a fear about plots against "secondary targets", either tourist or Jewish, in the Thai capital.

As for the rationale for the attack, Cressey said, "All theories make sense. Can't rank order them yet," while Leiter noted, "It's pretty consistent with the increase in tension between Israel and Iran." Iran has vowed revenge for the killings of its nuclear scientists, which it has blamed on Israel and the U.S.

One possibility raised by both is Hezbollah revenge for the Israeli killing on Imad Mugniyah, the Hezbollah leader who died in a car bombing in downtown Damascus nearly four years ago on February 12, 2008.  Mugniyah was responsible for many anti-American and anti-Israeli terrorist attacks, including the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 1983, the Marine Barracks bombing in 1983 and the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992. Hezbollah vowed revenge for that killing but never carried out attacks that it tied to Mugniyah's death.

Background on the incident from the Associated Press:

National police chief Priewpan Damapong told reporters the suspect, named as Atris Hussein, had given police an address where bomb-making material was being kept.

Priewpan said the suspect had maintained that his group had not planned an attack in Thailand but intended to transport the substances to a third country, which he would not name.

Asked about the discovery, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters: "I have been informed. I would like to ask people not to panic. We are currently in control of the situation."

Thai officials have seemed irritated by travel advisories issued by the U.S. and Israeli governments, followed by several more since Friday. Foreign Minister Surapong Towijakchaikul said diplomats from countries that had issued warnings would meet with him for an explanation on Monday.

Tourism is a big money-earner for Thailand, and ministers are keen not to deter travelers, especially after the hit to tourism from severe flooding in 2011 and political unrest in 2010.

Yingluck also instructed the defense ministry to consult U.S. embassy officials to discuss its terror warning and seek a retraction.

However, an embassy spokesman later said the terror warning to its citizens was valid and the United States had no plan to rescind it.

Defence Minister Yuthasak Sasiprapha told reporters in the northern city of Chiang Mai on Sunday that Thailand was not the target, although officials have also said that areas of Bangkok frequented by Westerners and Israelis could be hit.

Yuthasak said that a second suspect had managed to leave the country.

 

Who is Mikhail Prokhorov? That’s easy. He is the most interesting man in the world!

Mikhail Dmitrievich Prokhorov, 46, is a singular figure in Russia and now the larger world. At 6 foot, 9 inches tall and thin, he is the Global Russian - very different from the short, dour New Soviet Man of decades past.

---

A billionaire somewhere between 18 and 25 times over, he is a partying playboy who swears he has never tasted vodka. He is called Russia's most eligible bachelor and has been seen in the company of some of the world's most beautiful women. He is quick-witted, charming, droll and affable, someone who enjoys the spotlight, craves it in fact. In a literary sense, he is more Jay Gatsby than Dr. Zhivago.

Although he is a Russian patriot, he also is a man of the world. He travels in a $45 million Gulfstream V corporate jet and can't seem to keep track of his $45 million yacht. His watch is reportedly worth $138,000.

He owns a large house in one of Moscow's new gated communities. He’s been in a French court trying to retrieve a $30 million deposit he placed on what is purported to be the world's most expensive home -- the $700 million Villa Leopolda, built for a Belgian king on the Riviera. First he liked it, then he didn’t.

He owns an NBA team – the New Jersey Nets -- and part of a billion-dollar arena being built in Brooklyn. His business partner in both is the rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z. He’s received medals from the presidents of Russia and France and met U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the latter of whom suggested he’d like to play with Prokhorov in any pickup basketball game.

And now he’s running for president of Russia. Prokhorov was not born interesting. He arrived a simple comrade in the Soviet Union on May 3, 1965. His father was a member of the Soviet sports committee and his mother a scientist.

While privileged, his upbringing was nothing special for the day.  His parents sent him to English Special School No. 21 in Moscow, where he received a gold medal and was recommended by the local Komsomol (Young Communist League) for college admission.

But first, he did what other Soviet youths were required to do. From 1983 to 1985 -- at the height of tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union -- he served in the Soviet military. He also joined the Communist Party, though it doesn't appear he was ever much of a Communist. While in college, he sold stone-washed jeans -- his first capitalist venture-- under the brand name, "Yourself Jeans."

But all that presents only an inkling of who he is.  Let's start with the money.

Prokhorov went into banking after graduating from the Moscow Financial Institute with a degree in international economics. From 1989 to 1992, he was head of the International Bank for Economic Cooperation’s Management Board.

Then, in 1993, during the largely unregulated and highly controversial privatization of former state-controlled industries, Prokhorov and a partner, Vladimir Potanin, saw an opportunity. They engineered the purchase of Norilsk Nickel mines in Siberia through the then-small Uneximbank. He was 28 at the time, Potanin slightly older.

It was a bargain, but hardly an instant bonanza. Workers hadn’t been paid for six months and the arctic terrain was polluted beyond most Westerners’ comprehension, according to published reports. Early on, Prokhorov was Mr. Inside at Norilsk, working on pollution control and financing, among other things, and negotiating with Soviet-spawned labor unions on compensation.

Prokhorov doesn’t apologize for buying up dilapidated Soviet era properties for a song. He followed the rules, he will tell you. Some oligarchs succeeded more than others. He succeeded the most. He is credited with turning the inefficient Soviet nickel mines into one of the world's largest and most profitable natural resource corporations. And over the past decade he expanded his holdings to include palladium, gold and bauxite, from which aluminum is made.

(Not everything at Norilsk is yet up to Western standards. In spite of large-scale spending on pollution control technology -- about $100 million, according to the New York Times --  the company is still one of the world's worst polluters, emitting nearly 2 million tons of sulfur dioxide annually, more than the entire nation of France.) 

Detained, then honored
Prokhorov became more than just an intriguing industrialist in January 2007, when he was detained for allegedly arranging prostitutes for guests at his annual two-week long Russian Christmas party at the French Alps resort of Courchevel. He was released without charges after spending four days in jail, and none of the women was charged. He later received an apology from French authorities, apparently arranged by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. By 2011, he had been awarded the French Legion of Honor for arranging cultural exchanges.

Reports on the affair by French and Russian publications offered jaw-dropping glimpses of Prokhorov’s gilded lifestyle. Paris Match reported that when the women were detained and their luggage searched, lucrative gifts were discovered, valued at between 20,000 and 300,000 euros (approximately $25,800 to $387,000 at the exchange rate at the time). Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that Prokhorov engaged a "face patrol" at his favorite Courchevel haunt, "Les Caves," to filter out all but the most beautiful people.

He shrugged off his four days in French jail, noting that he had been a Soviet conscript.

Then there was the time he soiled one of the Soviet Union's -- and Russia's -- most historic icons: the Aurora, the Russian cruiser that fired the cannon blast that launched the Russian Revolution in 1918. Prokhorov rented the vessel permanently moored in St Petersburg in June 2009 for an evening of merrymaking to celebrate the first anniversary of his new magazine, the Russian Pioneer. The party became so rowdy that several millionaires jumped or fell into the Neva River and had to be fished out by authorities. Museum artifacts also were reportedly damaged.

Prokhorov’s reaction to the resulting controversy? He offered to buy the ship and restore it.

He is not beyond anger, though. When his sister was harassed and insulted by local youths at a Prokhorov Foundation event in 2009, he threatened business rivals who he said had paid them.

 “Since I was a child, I had a rule -- to punish crudity and disrespect towards women,” he wrote on his blog, according to a translation by the ReadRussia blog. “I see one simple and effective way to handle it: If the two gentlemen who financed this PR campaign do not apologize to my sister in the next two weeks, I will do what every man should: I will personally beat the @!$%# out of them."

Asked later if he was serious, he responded, "Do you have any doubts? Those responsible made their apologies to Irina."

All of this made him famous, at least in Moscow.  He was satirized on Russian television for his lavish lifestyle and his reputation as "Russia’s most eligible bachelor."

It also caused him problems with the prudish Kremlin. He was pressured to sell his 25 percent stake in Norilsk to another oligarch, Oleg Derispaska, the owner of RusAl, the world’s biggest aluminum manufacturer. Propitiously, the deal was completed just before the 2008 economic downturn, resulting in a bonanza for Prokhorov. He received nearly $5 billion in cash as well as stock in Polyus Gold and stock and debt in RusAl, now the main sources of his net worth. 

At that point, there was no stopping him. At a time when no one had cold hard cash, he was flush. He shrewdly diversified. 

By 2009, he had controlling interests in metals companies (Polyus Gold, UC RusAl), banks (Renaissance Capital, MFK Bank), media outlets (RBC, Snob and Russian Pioneer magazines, FIT television channel, F5 web portal/newspaper), insurance (Soglassye), real estate (OPIN Investment and Development Group), electricity production (Quadra) and LED technology (Optogan).

He also established a personal investment vehicle, ONEXIM, to control his various assets.

Entering the international arena
Then, in 2009, Prokhorov stepped onto the international stage.

The New Jersey Nets were a mess, stripped of talent and suffering through a 12-70 season under owner Bruce Ratner, who had suffered enormous losses as he tried to move the team from northern New Jersey to a $6.4 billion real estate development in Brooklyn called Atlantic Yards. But five years after the 22-acre project had been announced, lawsuit after lawsuit had caused delay after delay. To make things worse, Ratner faced a Dec. 31 deadline to sell $500 million in tax-exempt bonds to build the Nets’ arena, to be called Barclays Center. Without them the project was going to die not with a bang but a whimper. And 2009 was not an auspicious time to get financing for anything, let alone a beleaguered basketball arena.

Enter Prokhorov, who had played basketball and previously owned Euroleague power CSKA Moscow. He had been interested in buying the Knicks, but the Dolan family wasn’t selling. (Later after buying the Nets, he erected an 18-story billboard featuring him and business partner Jay-Z outside James Dolan’s offices at Madison Square Garden.)  An investment banker suggested an alternative, mentioning Ratner and his troubles.

A deal was stuck over dinner in Moscow, and it was every bit as shrewd as any of Prokhorov’s Russian maneuvers. According to ONEXIM and Nets officials, he laid down a little more than $200 million in cash and got 80 percent of the team; 45 percent of the billion dollar arena, and an option to purchase up to 20 percent of the overall Atlantic Yards project at a bargain basement price. In exchange, he agreed to assume 80 percent of the team’s astronomical debt load -- more than $221 million -- and pay up to $60 million to cover losses while the team was stuck in New Jersey. He also paid a $4 million buyout fee so the team could move out of its isolated and decrepit digs near the Meadowlands and into Newark’s gleaming new Prudential Center. Moreover, when bond rating agencies wouldn’t give the arena bonds an investment grade rating, Prokhorov agreed to sink another $76 million into the project. (He wasn’t doing it for charitable reasons. If his partners can’t pay it back at 11 percent interest per annum, he gets 80 percent of the arena.) 

Within weeks, a key eminent domain case was finally dismissed, the bonds sold and his investment was well on its way to his goal: a billion dollar valuation within five years.

When asked by a reporter at a May 2010 press conference in New York if his purchase was part of a larger effort by Russian oligarchs to buy up Western sports teams, he smiled and drolly intoned, “Please tell America, I come in peace.”

After he videotaped a message in his sister’s kitchen promising a championship in as little as one year and no longer than five, his reception from long-suffering fans long-suffering bordered on obeisance. At his first game as the team owner in October 2010, a steady stream of them approached the owner’s suite and thanked him profusely for buying the team. (Inside, bottles of Lafitte Rothschild 1982, valued at about $5,000 a pop, were scattered about for his guests.) 

One night a couple of fans found themselves on a train from New York to Newark with their favorite team’s owner and his entourage. The reason? When it looked like traffic would prevent his caravan of limos from making the game, he had jumped on New Jersey Transit. His spokesman distributed a video of the trip showing one of the world’s richest men standing in the aisle of a New Jersey commuter train, joking in Russian with his friends. 

He agreed to a “60 Minutes” profile that showed him in a trendy Moscow nightclub with scantily clad women half his age, posing with an AK-7, jet-skiing in the Maldives, working on his kick-boxing skills and claiming he really didn’t know where his yacht was -- it was docked in the south of France and available for lease for $325,000 a week. It was masterful image-making. Later, there was an only slightly tamer profile in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, headlined “An Oligarch of Our Own” The cover featured him legs spread slightly apart, looking ahead and holding out two basketballs as if astride the NBA world. 

Suddenly, the guy who dealt with gritty environmental problems at a mine north of the Arctic Circle was not just an NBA owner, but a bona fide international celebrity. Everyone wanted to meet him.

Maintaining mystique
Despite his fondness for the limelight, Prokhorov remained private in ways. He might spend nearly $18,000 on lunch at a Midtown restaurant, but it was the restaurant owner who bragged about it to the New York Post, not Prokhorov. He might spend $30 million on a vacation with friends in the south of France, as French media reported, but he wouldn't confirm it or boast about it. Of course, he didn't deny it either. He understands mystique.

Before entering politics, he refused to identify his favorite author, his favorite fictional character, even his favorite color. He said he didn't want the media or public to be aware of his "cultural biases." He did identify a favorite quote, from a French author: "Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.

He still hasn’t revealed his favorite color but he did disclose that he is an atheist and that his favorite book is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” the magisterial work on life in Stalinist labor camps.

Prokhorov’s entry into Russian politics was similarly contradictory. A week after denying he had any interest in politics, he agreed this spring to head a small right-wing political party called “Right Cause.” it was seen as part of the Kremlin’s “managed democracy,” that is a party created to give the country’s leaders “friendly opposition” from the right.

He even met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the latter’s residence, where Medvedev praised him as “quite revolutionary” and arranged a photo op in which the two were seated across a table -- better than a side by side standing shot, since Prokhorov is a foot and a half taller than Medvedev.

Everything seemed to be going swimmingly as summer progressed.  Prokhorov poured money into the party, giving it publicity. He resigned as the head of his investment vehicle, ONEXIM, to devote all his time to politics. 

But in fall, something changed. Vladislav Surkov, who as head of presidential administration is in charge of the Kremlin’s “managed democracy,” began calling on the phone, Prokhorov later said, demanding changes in party personnel, in the party’s list of candidates.

Pushed by the Kremlin, the party finally ousted Prokhorov as leader in September.

Prokhorov responded by holding a news conference where he blistered Sukrov as the Kremlin’s “puppet master,” although he pointedly did not criticize either the president or prime minister. Then he dropped out of sight.

In apparent retaliation, Medvedev removed him from the Russian modernization commission and, ominously, Prokhorov’s application to have Polyus Gold listed on the London Stock Exchange was inexplicably delayed.

But as resentment mounted after Putin’s announcement of his candidacy for president on Sept. 24, Prokhorov got back in, declaring himself an independent candidate for the office.

Some critics see a Machiavellian hand behind Prokhorov’s political rebound, suggesting he is a “stooge” set up by the Kremlin to draw votes away from other opposition parties. He and those around him deny it.   

In the unlikely event he is elected president in March --  polls show him with numbers in the low single digits -- there are some hints of what a Prokhorov presidency  would look like:

By all accounts, he is calm in even the worst crisis and demands from his aides that they have Plans A, B, C, etc., at the ready.

He is not a hands-on manager, preferring to trust a cadre of loyalists in their 30s and 40s to run his companies. But if he doesn’t like what he sees, he is quick to let someone go. The day he took over the Nets, he summarily dismissed the coach.  

He is not a technocrat, having only lately begun using a cell phone. Although he claims he does not use a personal computer (too much information) and writes out his thoughts on yellow legal pads, his staff maintains both a personal website and a personal blog, regularly posting how he feels on life and business. He has recently branched out into Facebook and Twitter, but only because of politics. He told reporters in 2010, “I know of this iPad. I hope we never meet.”

On the other hand, no NBA team makes more use of the iPad, even drawing up plays on it. And he’s not afraid to invest in new technologies. His latest venture is a $150 million investment in an electric car called the “Yo,” which will go on sale later this year.

Politically, he is described as right of center, but liberal, somewhat like another basketball playing pol, Bill Bradley. He was friendly with Yelena Bonner, the late human rights campaigner and widow of Andrei Sakharov. He financed a memorial to Stalinist repression deep inside Russia.

He has said he won’t criticize Putin, but has also said the system will collapse in five years unless it’s dramatically reformed. He calls himself a serious candidate and has vowed to give up partying if elected. He told one interviewer he may even marry if Russia feels it needs a first lady. Most recently, he has been seen in the company of Ksenia Sobchak, described as the Russian version of Paris Hilton, having posed for Maxim magazine. 

Yet his quest for the presidency seems quixotic at best, cynical at worst. He still believes in the power of money. Shut out of state television, he tried to buy TV Rain, an independent satellite and online television operation. When that failed, he tried to acquire Kommersant, the Russian equivalent of the Wall Street Journal. No sale there either.

So he is resorting to using the social media. He has a YouTube channel where you can watch “This Week in Prokhorov” or his latest commercial, where dressed casually in a letter jacket and white shirt, he tells voters, “I want to work for you.”

He also makes clear that he wants to reform the system, not overthrow it. After all, few if any, have benefited more.

“Revolution in Russia always resulted in loss of life and reduced living standards,” he wrote recently on his blog.

He also indicated in other recent entries that he believes he is the right man to lead his country through what he sees as a pivotal period.

 “I believe that the next president must find in himself the will and courage,” he wrote. “And the people must clearly explain their vision and their actions. If he is honest, he will understand.”

“… As president of the various structures -- in business, and not just business -- I have often resorted to the unpopular measures. Yes, it's difficult. Yes, sometimes you come across a lack of understanding and acceptance even in the immediate vicinity. Yes, sometimes you're risking much …on a grand scale, sometimes everything. But when you can clearly see the situation, you see that there is no alternative but  to do this.”

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News and a Nets season ticket holder. 

By Robert Windrem
NBC News investigative producer
for special projects

Two weeks into the Egyptian revolution, there’s been no communiqué, no message from the hills of the Pakistani hinterland. Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have been notably silent.

For years, the two have regularly spoken in audio and video messages about events and trends in the Muslim World, attempting to continue their legacy as leaders of radical Islam. Now with Egypt, al-Zawahiri’s home turf, in turmoil, shouldn’t they have issued something?

An al-Zawahiri aide did release a statement last weekend but it was short and not broadcast. Moreover, the deputy, Thirwat Shehata, was forced to admit that his and al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad have had no role in the uprising. “Indeed, the Pharaoh and his rotten party must depart, ” Shehata’s statement said.

But Shehata is not al-Zawahiri or bin Laden, NBC News analyst and former NSC official Roger Cressey said, adding that without something directly from them, the two “are in danger of becoming the ‘emperors with no clothes’.” Moreover, the lack of an al-Qaida role or even a message was undercutting their influence.

---

 

“I think it’s curious why they haven’t. Al-Qaida needs to inject itself. It’s been presented with an opportunity to be supportive of their narrative,” Cressey said.

One reason, according to analysts inside and outside the U.S. government, could be the declining security situation in northeast Pakistan where both are believed to be hiding.

Weeks pass and still nothing
Getting a message out will often take a week to 10 days and involve a network of couriers. Egypt’s revolution is still only two weeks old. But others point out that the first demonstrations in Tunisia began nearly a month ago … and still nothing.

“They may be working on it,” one counter terrorism analyst inside the U.S. government said. “They operate on their own timetable, not ours. Just because we expect one, doesn’t mean they feel that way.”

He and others noted that the frequency of statements by al-Zawahiri and bin Laden had dropped off significantly in the last year, which they attribute to the ramped up use of Predators and other armed unmanned aerial vehicles by the U.S.

Starting in the middle of 2008, the U.S. has carried out 200 or so strikes. They’ve killed some 1,300 militants. Attacks have increased dramatically under President Obama. The strikes have gone from about 35 in 2008 to 50 in 2009 and 115 last year, said a U.S. official.

“They may simply be hunkered down,” added the counter-terrorism official.

“These attacks are not just aimed at thwarting operations,” said Cressey. “They are aimed at preventing them from getting out their message.”

Beyond personal safety — and delays in transmitting a message, often by hand, from secure locations to trusted computers — there may be political considerations.

Evan Kohlmann, another NBC News analyst who tracks radical Islamic forums, said it’s less personal safety or logistics that have kept bin Laden and al-Zawahiri off the air.

“I think they are sitting and watching what happens before jumping the gun ... they call it the benefit of hindsight,” Kohlmann said.

Bruce Riedel, a former high ranking CIA official with a long history in the Middle East, wrote last week that al-Zawahiri “probably also has very mixed feelings about what is going on in his homeland.”

“No doubt he welcomes Mubarak’s demise,” he added. “He has called for the Egyptian leader’s overthrow for three decades. But al-Qaida and Zawahiri know they have been bypassed in the streets of Cairo, Suez and Alexandria. This is not their revolution and they are not its inspiration. They may try to jump on the bandwagon but this is not their caravan.”

Peaceful protest seems to work
The U.S. official said he doesn’t disagree, adding al-Zawahiri may be “nervous” that his whole life’s work may be at risk.

“He’s worked a lifetime on this and gotten nothing. It’s the demonstrators who are effecting regime change,” he said.

Cressey added, “Each day’s demonstration shows how irrelevant al-Qaida’s philosophy is because it (al-Qaida philosophy) is based on violence. But al-Qaida had nothing to do with this.”

And, the U.S. analysts said, this could lead to opportunities for the United States.

“People see that with patience, consistency and commitment, you can change things,” said the U.S. official. “If there is a peaceful transition, it’s a huge blow to their al-Qaida philosophy, and it follows Tunisians being able to do the same thing. It proves you don’t have to go to Pakistan to carry out a suicide bombing. You can protest.”

Riedel wrote even the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egyptian politics was unlikely to change the perspective that this is a “disaster” for al-Qaida.

“They have denounced the Brotherhood for years for participating in Mubarak’s rigged elections and for advocating change through non-violence,” Riedel wrote. “Both Zawahiri and bin Laden were once members ... but long ago they left it because it would not support their use of terror. To see the Brotherhood now playing a significant role in changing Egypt is a major setback for al-Qaida.” 

Further reading: Who is Ayman al-Zawahiri?

Update: Al-Qaida's "Islamic State of Iraq" (ISI) has published a new written statement appealing “to the Muslims in beloved Egypt.”  In its message, the ISI urged protesters in Egypt to wage violent jihad against the Mubarak regime and avoid “malicious secularism” and “infidel democracy.”