Terrorist attack at Moscow’s airport
Although no one is officially saying it yet, today’s bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport that killed 35 people and wounded scores of others was almost certainly the work of terrorist suicide bombers from the northern Causcasus region of Chechnya and/or its environs.
Any other origin would be a big surprise. That area has been the source of most (if not all?) of the terrorism in Russia, including the horrific Beslan school massacre. In an especially chilling detail, many such bombers are female. They perpetrated a subway suicide bombing last March.
Here’s a timeline of the last 15 years of terrorist attacks on Russia; you can see there have been a large number with heavy casualties, including a previous one involving this same airport:
Aug. 24, 2004: Two female suicide bombers bring down two Russian airliners that took off from Moscow’s Domodedovo airport, killing 90 people.
It is no surprise, either, that the Reuters article on the current bombing manages to use about 700 words to describe it, but the only time it says either “terrorist” or “terrorism” is when directly quoting a Russian official using the word. ABC News is hardly any better, employing scare quotes around the terms.
I can understand being reluctant to finger the perpetrators’ identity. Even though it is easy to guess, newspapers shouldn’t be guessing (although they often do—in this country, the default position is that it’s someone on the right). But the fact that this is terrorism is obvious beyond any possible argument.
Words matter. If the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” must be censored by much of the press, as they have been for years, we are in an enormous pack of trouble, and it’s not just from the terrorists themselves.
Oh. and one more unmentionable thing: the Chechnyan region is Sufi Muslim. Religion is certainly not the complete motivation for the bombings, which are separatist in nature, part of the area’s arsenal in a long and bloody war against Russia. But the particular form it takes in these attacks—suicide terrorism of the most vicious kind—is almost solely the province of Islamic “militants.” This is no accident, despite attempts to whitewash the situation.
Just found a head. An “Arab appearance” head.
Coming right up, “Male muslim between 17 and 40.”
Obviously the action is motivated by Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.
There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that Chimpy Bush and Darth Cheney are responsible for this dastardly attack.
I had noticed the world-wide effort to avoid the use of the word “terrorism”. It is scary if we are even afraid to use the correct terminology.
And don’t the Leftists try to teach us that terrorism is a reaction to our support of Israel. I guess the Moscow tragedy proves that, since Russia is such a big supporter….
I’m surprised we haven’t had one of these yet, although the Times Square bomber tried.
The Russians have a real problem on their hands. Unless they are prepared to exterminate lots of ethnic groups, it’s not going away soon. They would do well to give independence to some nations and move their southern border north.
Comment seen at Belmont Club:
Dear Mr. Frank:
The Russians want to expand their border southward. They are not going to let Chechnya slip away. They have long desired access to the Persian Gulf. That is why they became involved in Afghanistan (gate way to Pakistan and Iran) in the 1970s.
Under the Czars, under the communists, and now under the thugocracy Russia remains the same. They want their old USSR empire back and they want to expand even more to the south if possible. Lenin, and later Stalin, murdered directly and indirectly somewhere around 50 million of their our citizens; given the chance they’ll gladly slaughter another 50 million to achieve their goals.
Parker,
Did you read anything about the Russian people now wanting to bury Lenin? I saw something somewhere in the German media but don’t remember details. That sounds like many Russians might be ready to put the past behind them if only the thugs and kleptocrats could offer a future. Lacking that, they will probably go for national pride.
The Democrats are just sorry it didn’t happen here.
1) Because they believe America is an evil racist place and deserves this type of thing, and
2) becuase Obama’s poll numbers could increase just like Clintons after OK.
Whaddya mean Chechnya? Everybody knows it was right wing extremist inspired by the climate of hate produced by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News!
(I posted that just in case Larry is busy.)
Parker,
Your points are well taken and are supported by the Russian siege of Grozny which included artillery barrages of the city. However, such brutality leaves lots of angry people who do not mind dying. The siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War similarly left a lot of angry people.
“Religion is certainly not the complete motivation for the bombings, which are separatist in nature,”
Yeah, in the same way the Islamic jihad against Israel is “about the issue of Palestinian statehood.”
I’m reminded of the tons of histories that portray Hajj Amin Al-Husseini (the Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler’s close friend) as having used religion as a tool in the nationalist conflict over Mandate Palestine. I now believe they’re all wrong: It was nationalism used as a tool in what has been right from 1882 a religion-based conflict.
Russia’s foibles and acts of stupidity apart (but then what state doesn’t act today against its best interests?), the Chechens don’t deserve a state. Because they’re Muslims, and Muslims use every state at their disposal as a base for launching jihad attacks.
The flashpoint of Islamic insurgency now is not Chechnya, which was successfully pacified, but Dagestan, Ingushetia and other North Caucasian republics. As was the case with Chechnya, Islamic jihad here is spearheaded by Arabs, mostly Al-Qaeda emissaries. And yes, Russia can not afford emergence of terrorist-governed states at her borders, since these fanatics will be never satisfied by independence alone and will use it to launch further attacks on Russia proper. All Muslim states need to be eventually modernized to secular, pro-Western states or re-colonized by Western powers. This will be the main history mission of the current century.
Parker, Russia hasn’t now resources to fight big wars. Her army is under reform now, it is not battle-ready and will not be for at least two decades from now. So Russia is on defense now, trying to hold her ground, which also is not an easy task. Territorial expansion is not in the cards for the next generation at least.
Neo, Chechnya is not Sunni, it is, like all other parts of North Caucasia, predominantly Sufi. The last attempt to introduce Sharia law in Chechnya was made by imam Shamil, leader of anti-Russian insurgency in 19 century, and it failed. In last decade all encroaches of Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam in North Caucasia were made by foreign forces funded by Saudi Arabia with direct purpose to destabilize this region.
Sergey: I know Wiki isn’t the best source in the world, but it’s ordinarily accurate on these things, and if you follow my link it says Chechnya is 94% Sunni Moslem.
However, I figured you would probably know better than Wiki, and so I looked it up a different way and, lo and behold, another Wiki entry says Sufi, of the Shafi’i type. It also says that some are Salafis, a more Orthodox sect. So I assume that Sufi is correct. I will change the post to reflect this.
Both articles are too short to be accurate, and Shafi school of Islamic law is, indeed, Sunni. But reality on the ground differs from nominal classification, since Sufi Islam is not so much school of jurisprudence but rather anti-establishment spiritual movement with strong anarchist undercurent. It is mystical and secretive, from the point of view of establishmental Islam is heresy or something simply outside Islam. It is also a popular resistance movement against Arabization, to conserve tribal pre-Islamic traditions (adats), and has Zoroasrtrian and Buddist roots. In a sense, Sufism predates Islam by a millenium. Its ascetic practices do not require gathering in mosques, it is “inner path” teaching which calls to individuals, not to community. Some vagant Sufi preachers (dervishes) aquire status comparable to saints in Christianity or Tzadiks in Hassidic tradition. And Chechnya for last 4 centuries was a hotbed of this spiritual insurgency, one of the most revered Sufi Sheikhs, Sheikh Mansur made it his stronghold. Murides were disciples of Sufi imams who disseminate their teaching far and wide. The most famous Chechen rite, a circle dance “zikr” (only men partipate, holding their hands on the shoulders of the next participant and invoking Allah’s names) is distinctly Sufi and amazingly resemble analogic Hassidic rite. Both Hassids and Sufi draw upon one of Kabbalistic “hidden” books, Sefer Yetzira, ascribed to Abraham (Ibragim, in Arabic transcription). Now it is impossible to uncover, who imitated whom: kabbalist Isaak Luria borrowed from Sufi or other way around, but a remarkable similarity between Hassidism and Sufism is obvious.
In some improbable historical twist, Leo Tolstoy depicted Sheikh Mansour under name “Hadji Murat”, with a great sympathy, while Mansour was arch-enemy of Russia during Caucasian war. This made some today Sufi writers to depict Leo Tolstoy as a secret Sufi murid.
Sergey:
I agree that the Russian military is currently weak in terms of using it to promote significant territorial expansion. Additionally, the population as a whole is somewhat demoralized and the economy is not strong. However, the Russians are extremely nationalistic. The desire to expand is there even if the means are currently lacking. Putin and the thugocracy are not going to rush forth, they are going to plan ahead and rebuild their military. They will wait for an opening to expand.
Nonetheless, I can not see them allowing Chechnya or other areas of the Caucus to break away. As an example I offer the recent ‘war of Ossetia’ where Russia craved out a slice of Georgia with no more than a murmur of disapproval from the international community.
No general assertion about attitude of Russian people can possibly be true, since the first time in her history Russian society is extremly diverse and broken into thousand small sects on every important issue. No group forms a majority or even plurality, rather we have an anomy (lack of common values or ideals). This is a complete ideological Balkanization. In this climate all attempts to create or invent a state ideology permanently fail. De-ideologization is an accomplished fact. How long this unnatural state of society can last is everybody’s guess.
Sergey,
“The most famous Chechen rite, a circle dance ‘zikr’ (only men partipate, holding their hands on the shoulders of the next participant and invoking Allah’s names) is distinctly Sufi and amazingly resemble analogic Hassidic rite.”
No such comparable Hassidic rite exists. HaShem’s names are not uttered unless as part of a prayer or blessing–never just like that, plainly, by themselves.
“Now it is impossible to uncover, who imitated whom: kabbalist Isaak Luria borrowed from Sufi or other way around, but a remarkable similarity between Hassidism and Sufism is obvious.”
Hassidic Judaism isn’t the straight-out kabbalah of Haarizal (=Luria), it’s a derivative made safe for the masses of Jews. Unvarnished kabbalah is like wine, only with a far higher age limit (forty), and even past that limit only great scholars are trusted with it.