* MARCH 30, 2010

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Russia's Terror Goes Viral

The metro bombings in Moscow make clear that terrorism is far from exorcized from Russia. So where has it been hiding these last few, quiet years? The Web.

BY PAUL QUINN-JUDGE | MARCH 29, 2010

 

On March 2, when his hideout in the Ingush village of Ekazhevo was surrounded by Russian special forces backed with armor, Said Buryatsky took out his mobile phone and recorded a final video for his young followers across Russia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia. The standoff that followed lasted several hours, ending with Buryatsky and five others dead and 11 captured. After the raid, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) retrieved his phone (with the video on it) along with weapons and a substantial quantity of explosives. Then, after a few days of hesitation, the insurgents finally admitted their man was dead. Immediately, the tributes began to flow in by the hundreds on jihadi websites --farewells from Azerbaijan and Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Germany and Turkey. Some were defiant, some from rueful, self-described "Internet mujahideen."

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The story of Said Buryatsky, aka Said the Buryat, born Alexander Tikhomirov in 1982 in the western Siberian city of Ulan-Ude, thousands of miles from where he died, illustrates the dramatic speed with which the Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus is changing. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin still dreams of killing the last guerrilla, the last commander. But as the bombings in Moscow this morning show, that goal might still be far off. Buryatsky's story is a graphic demonstration that jihad in the North Caucasus has gone viral. In the coming days, the FSB will be looking online, perhaps as much as anywhere else, to figure out what happened on the Moscow subway.

 

The computer has long played a role in the North Caucasus guerrilla warfare. Ten years ago, Ibn al-Khattab, the Saudi volunteer and former comrade in arms of Osama bin Laden, would deploy his satellite phones and computers when he set up camp for the night in the highland forests of Vedeno, in southern Chechnya. One of his lieutenants used to fret that the Russians would intercept Khattab's signal sooner or later, as they did when they killed independent Chechnya's first leader, a former Soviet air force general named Djokhar Dudayev. He was wrong; Khattab was killed by a double agent who infiltrated one of his bases with poison.

 

Still, until Buryatsky, the computer's and the Internet's roles were somewhat conventional. Grim, drawn-faced guerrilla leaders, unaccustomed to public speaking, recorded wooden statements of menace to the regime, usually in Chechen. Jumpy videos, the film always either under- or overexposed, depicted the militants' successful ambushes on country roads. Buryatsky was different. He was an assured speaker -- relaxed, a city boy. He was fluent in Russian, having been educated in Moscow and the Middle East, later performing the hajj in 2007 in Saudi Arabia, where he also recorded lectures.

 

Buryatsky's target was an audience yet untapped by the Chechen rebels' media: The young, well-educated urban youth in the Muslim areas of the former Soviet Union. And he reached them. His teachings are all over the Web; so are his ring tones. His DVDs can be found for sale outside mosques in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. So successful were his recruiting messages that, according to some reports, young Kazakhs have been driven to come to the region to fight, dying in armed clashes with Russian authorities in the North Caucasus. A young gunman shot dead in Dagestan a few weeks ago, for example, was identified as a Kyrgyz. At a trial in Kazakhstan this year, the angry parents of three young men who had just been sentenced for trying to slip into the North Caucasus to join the jihad shouted as their detained children were exiting the courtroom, "Why did the authorities allow Said Buryatsky to come freely to Kazakhstan? Why were his teachings allowed to be distributed here?"

 

Maybe part of the proselytizer's success came from how he got into the business in the first place. Buryatsky spent less than two years in the forests. He was already a major Internet personality for young Muslims when, the story goes, an Arab commander in the North Caucasus challenged him to give up his easy life and join them. He did so in the first part of 2008.

 

After that, he turned his brief career as a guerrilla into a seamless Internet narrative. He admitted his initial apprehension toward joining the guerrillas. Would he be up to it? Was it a trap? In the end, he apparently didn't hesitate long and quickly emerged as a key face in the movement -- "the main ideologue," as Russian officials called him. Buryatsky continued his Internet preaching and groomed suicide bombers. Last June, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, president of Ingushetia, a federal republic in southwestern Russia, was badly injured by a suicide bomber said to have been trained by Buryatsky. In a talk a few months later, Buryatsky disdainfully referred to what he called Yevkurov's low IQ and "provincialness." In August, more than 20 policemen died when another Buryatsky disciple drove a minibus filled with explosives into a police compound in the Ingush city of Nazran. Buryatsky, wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans with a large handgun tucked into them, contributed an introduction to the film of the attack. His later videos had a more frenetic edge: As he talked of jihad, Buryatsky simultaneously loaded weapons for some unexplained combat.

 

Now that he is gone, Buryatsky is quickly becoming an online legend, reinforced by his letters, now being selectively released by guerrilla websites. They depict his hatred for "dying Russia" and the "pigs" who serve it, and his own growing obsession -- a "wild hunger" as he called it in one letter -- to become a shahid, or martyr. It would not be surprising if his last message -- the one filmed on his phone and later confiscated by the FSB -- surfaces on some guerrilla website, leaked by sympathizers inside the local police.

 

Even with the absence of what he said in his final moments, however, Buryatsky's story catches the profound changes that have taken place in the North Caucasus in the past decade. The first Chechen war, from 1994 to 1996, was largely a secular struggle waged by people who wanted to live independently from Russia. The current conflict is being fought for an Islamist state across the North Caucasus, and ultimately beyond. The soldiers this time are fighters who, like Buryatsky, dream of dying a martyr's death. Perhaps for this reason, no one on the Russian side -- not even those with a personal score to settle -- showed much relief at Buryatsky's death. His old nemesis Yevkurov remarked that another ideologue is bound to emerge to take his place. Maybe next time, he said, it will be "some Said the Chinese." Unfortunately, for the Ingush president, Buryatsky's message of jihad may well have traveled that far.

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Paul Quinn-Judge is Central Asia project director at the International Crisis Group.

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 SUBJECTS: AL QAEDA, TERRORISM, INTERNET, SECURITY, CULTURE, RUSSIA, INTELLIGENCE, BORDERS, ISLAM, CAUCASUS, EASTERN EUROPE

 

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 (5)

 

SHOW COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE

 

AHSON HASAN

 

9:39 PM ET

 

March 29, 2010

 

Russia's Terror Goes Viral

 

More innocent lives lost, more terror spreads, more lives become more chaotic...Who are these terrible people who have literally uprooted our lives? Who are these faceless, wretched individuals that have messed up the routines, the schedules of those who struggle to make their ends meet in their quest to keep their heads above the water?

 

Its shameful, it undignified, it does not even make sense. On G_d's green earth, there's got to be some force to stop these vultures to kill; who has the 'magical powers' to stop their nefarious designs?

 

All I wish is that these insensitive individuals/groups that are going around killing people should meet a horrible end. Our hearts go out to those who lost their loved ones in Moscow today.

  REPLY

 

 

ALLANGREEN

 

5:57 AM ET

 

March 30, 2010

 

Saudi Arabia, and those Poor Muslim Victims

 

One country above all deserves a decent invasion - Saudi Arabia. As the post mentions, that's where the action always is organized.

 

Bombs going off in Bali, Moscow, Java, Beslan, London, Madrid - you name it - the road always leads to Mecca, Medina, via Ryiad.

 

Everyone should take these incidents seriously. Islamic terror will use any excuse to express itself. Whether its the presence of American military on Holy Soil, or our embassy in Kenya. Jihad - sponsored by, Saudi Arabia.

 

Whether it is territorial claims in Bosnia, or the Caucasus, Thailand or the Philippines - ultimately the Jihad is motivated by the claim of rampant Islamophobia and attacks on Islam. Claims trumped up by - Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and all the Muslims worlwide. They all claim to be victims! Since Muslims are always the "victims" they can justify any and all forms of Jihad against the infidel.

 

If we dont' wake up to it now, by he time we do wake up, we'll have a Saracen saber aiming at our nape.

 

Just imagine if these kinds of things were done by Nazis. You'd have the world in uproar. Anyone with a shaved head would be rightly incarcerated! Anyone with a Mein Kampf, considered a suspect.

 

But when we have bomb after bomb after bomb set off in the name of Islam - the idea that Islam can somehow be to blame, is not only not mentioned, it is CRIMINALIZED. The Koran is trumped up as some holy book of peace!?

 

I sense some schizophrenia here. You have a state which defends itself against Terrorism, and anyone who stands up for it is called a Racist. The very attempt to defend Israel, is CRIMINALIZED. You have the terrorist attacking it in the name of Islam, and anyone criticizing Islam, is CRIMINALIZED.

 

We really are living in a Caliphate, aren't we?!

  REPLY

 

 

MR. SNIPS

 

10:36 AM ET

 

March 30, 2010

 

Too Late

 

this article explains nothing new. Sure it tells of the recent idealogue Buryatsky, but Islamist websites dedicated to the establishment of North Caucus Caliphate in Chechnya, Dagostan, Ingushetiya, etc.. have been operating for a long time. The KavKaz Center one of these very websites and has posted internet videos for years from Umarov, Basayev as well as videos showing these cretins attacking Russian Soldiers.

 

Here is a question I will pose: As mentioned in the article the 1st Gazavat was largely secular. The second gazavat was fought to establish an Islamic Republic in the North Caucasus. Putin did a good job of stamping out much of the Islamist resistance and the Islamists have been relatively quiet recently. Does any one think the Black Widow bombing will spark new life into the Islamist movement in Russia (which has never been completely dead, just waning)and maybe a 3rd gazavat?

  REPLY

 

 

DISIGNY

 

11:23 AM ET

 

March 30, 2010

Who are the "Terrorists"?

 

Why do these Western types keep trying to turn Moslem areas into colonies, like Chechnya was? So the Russians "won", last time. Isn't it obvious that this is what gives "terrorists" power? And why are Russians themselves not called terrorists? I am by no means suggesting that the US and others do not do the same thing routinely .

  REPLY

 

 

CARDENAS697

 

3:34 PM ET

 

March 30, 2010

 

Freedom Fighter or Terrorist are they the same?

 

The First Chechen War occurred from 1994 to 1996, when Russian forces attempted to stop Chechnya from seceding.

 

The Second Chechen War was launched by the Russian Federation starting August 26, 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by Chechen forces.

 

These two wars and other conflicts that occur in this regain and projected towards Moscow are a direct result of many inhabitants in these regions that want self autonomy. Let’s not forget that most of these countries were conquered and oppressed under Soviet rule. In the case of Chechnya it goes back even earlier than the Soviet Union.

 

Terrorism is wrong! But I remind us many countries have had terrorism in their history. One that comes to mind is Israel. If memory serves correctly the Lehi not only killed British soldiers but a few civilians died as well. Some say the Lehi are Freedom Fighters. I don't know the diffrence can someone explain?

 

I don't see the United Nations addressing this issue. So can we really be that suprised.

  REPLY

 

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