{"id":8461,"date":"2024-03-24T11:12:50","date_gmt":"2024-03-24T11:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/24\/russias-battle-with-extremists-has-simmered-for-years\/"},"modified":"2024-03-24T11:12:50","modified_gmt":"2024-03-24T11:12:50","slug":"russias-battle-with-extremists-has-simmered-for-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/24\/russias-battle-with-extremists-has-simmered-for-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s Battle With Extremists Has Simmered for Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/24\/multimedia\/24russia-extremism-jkqb\/24russia-extremism-jkqb-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Russia\u2019s Battle With Extremists Has Simmered for Years\" title=\"Russia\u2019s Battle With Extremists Has Simmered for Years\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the past few months, deep in the forbidding deserts of central Syria, Russian forces have quietly joined the Syrian military in intensifying attacks against Islamic State strongholds, including bombing what local news reports called the dens and caves where the extremist fighters hide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While the world was focused on the conflicts in <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/news-event\/ukraine-russia\" title=\"\">Ukraine<\/a> and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/news-event\/israel-hamas-gaza\" title=\"\">Gaza<\/a>, this type of skirmishing has been simmering for years in Syria, and the Islamic State has long threatened to strike Russia directly for shoring up the regime of its sworn enemy, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That moment appeared to have come on Friday night with the bloody <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/23\/world\/europe\/moscow-concert-hall-attack-what-we-know.html\" title=\"\">assault on a Moscow concert hall<\/a> that left more than 130 people dead. <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/europe\/live-news\/moscow-russia-shooting-03-23-24\/index.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cThe fiercest in years,\u201d<\/a> said a statement of responsibility issued on Saturday by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/22\/us\/politics\/isis-k-moscow-attack.html\" title=\"\">a branch of the Islamic State<\/a> via its news agency, referring to the long history of brutal terrorist attacks pitting jihadist forces against Moscow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey have framed this attack as coming in the context of the normal, ongoing war between ISIS and the anti-Islamic countries,\u201d said Hanna Notte, a Berlin-based expert on Russian foreign and security policy at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. \u201cThis seems to be within the overarching theme of Russia in Afghanistan, Russia in Chechnya, Russia in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In his brief <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"http:\/\/en.kremlin.ru\/events\/president\/news\/73703\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">remarks<\/a> on Saturday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia did not mention the claim from the Islamic State, but he did threaten to punish those responsible. \u201cAll perpetrators, organizers and commissioners of this crime will receive a just and inevitable punishment,\u201d Mr. Putin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Russian president spoke with Mr. al-Assad about counterterrorism cooperation, among other issues, in a phone call on Saturday, the Kremlin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russian state television, dismissing responsibility claims by ISIS, instead suggested that it was a \u201cfalse flag\u201d <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/23\/world\/europe\/moscow-attack-putin.html\" title=\"\">operation by Ukraine<\/a>, possibly with Western backing. The White House issued a statement on Saturday repeating the U.S. assertion that ISIS was responsible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia has unquestionably been in the cross hairs of jihadist organizations for a while. The animosity first welled up during the decade-long Soviet war in Afghanistan, continued through during Russia\u2019s two brutal wars in Chechnya and escalated when the Russian Air Force was deployed to Syria in September 2015.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That October, a group of 55 Saudi clerics issued a statement calling for what they described as a holy war against Russia as punishment for its military intervention in Syria and predicted that Russia would suffer a defeat similar to that in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Late that October, an Islamic State affiliate in Egypt claimed responsibility for planting <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/25\/world\/middleeast\/in-reversal-egypt-says-terrorists-downed-russian-jet-o.html?searchResultPosition=2\" title=\"\">a bomb<\/a> on a charter flight carrying tourists back to St. Petersburg, Russia. The explosion over the Sinai Peninsula killed all 224 people aboard. Shortly after the attack, Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin\u2019s spokesman, rejected any link between that episode and Russia deploying its forces to Syria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Islamic State\u2019s propaganda wing soon released a video of a chant in Russian that included the chorus, \u201cSoon, very soon, blood will spill like the sea.\u201d The lyrics of the song also suggested that Muslim rule would return to Russian regions where about 20 million Muslims form a substantial part of the population, including the Caucasus, Tatarstan and in annexed Crimea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russia was keenly aware of the threat. A spate of bloody terrorist <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/03\/23\/world\/europe\/moscow-attacks-shootings-bombings.html?smid=url-share\" title=\"\">attacks<\/a> carried out mostly by homegrown extremists against a school, a Moscow theater, transportation hubs and other targets left hundreds of Russians dead in the 2000s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Kremlin, hoping that no terrorist incident would mar the 2014 Winter Olympics, gave what was considered at least tacit approval for extremists from the Caucasus or from among the Central Asian immigrant communities in Russia to depart. Thousands left. Russia became the second most prevalent language among Islamic State fighters after Arabic, said Colin P. Clarke, a counterterrorism expert with The Soufan Center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In February 2017, Mr. Putin said that about <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"http:\/\/kremlin.ru\/events\/president\/news\/53940\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">4,000 Russians<\/a> and another 5,000 people from Central Asian countries that were part of the Soviet Union had gone to fight in Syria. \u201cWe understand what a huge danger lies in this hotbed of terrorism on the territory of Syria for us, for Russia,\u201d he said during meeting with military personnel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In looking at the videos from the Russian concert hall attack, Mr. Clarke said that the four attackers seemed well coordinated. He said he suspected that they had trained at an Islamic State camp in Afghanistan and were dispatched to Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis was not an attack by some radicalized guys acting on their own,\u201d Mr. Clarke said. \u201cThis was not their first rodeo \u2014 the way they shot, the way they spaced out from each other, the way they moved.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Although the Islamic State has lost its caliphate in Syria and Iraq, that did not destroy the idea or the cause, said Andrew J. Tabler, a former U.S. government official on security issues in the Middle East and a senior fellow specializing in Syria at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Though diminished, the Islamic State, sometimes known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, retains global reach with its different branches. European security agencies said they had thwarted planned attacks in recent years, including one in April 2020, when Germany said that it had <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/ctc.westpoint.edu\/the-april-2020-islamic-state-terror-plot-against-u-s-and-nato-military-bases-in-germany-the-tajik-connection\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">foiled<\/a> a plot by adherents to Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K, in a Tajik immigrant community to attack NATO bases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The wing that took responsibility for the Moscow attack on Friday is known as ISIS-K. The group emerged among opponents of the Taliban in Afghanistan \u2014 the K stands for the region of Khorasan, which includes parts of what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Turkmenistan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On March 7, the Federal Security Service, Russia\u2019s main law enforcement agency, said that it had prevented an attack planned by the Islamic State against a Moscow synagogue. The State Department said in a statement Saturday that at the same time the United States had shared an intelligence report with Russia about a possible attack on a concert venue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhat happens in Syria doesn\u2019t stay in Syria, never has for the whole war,\u201d Mr. Tabler said. \u201cI think that this is payback for the Russians intervening on behalf of the Assad regime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Analysts noted that neither jihadist organizations nor ordinary Syrians had forgotten that the Russian Air Force has hit hospitals and other civilian targets, or that Russian cruise missiles have slammed into Syrian cities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Not long after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the main propaganda arm of the Islamic State spotlighted the war in its al-Naba newsletter, with a headline reading: \u201cCrusader Against Crusader Wars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The group celebrated the idea that two Christian powers in Europe were locked in a mutually destructive war, noted Mr. Clarke in an article for Foreign Policy. \u201cThis bloody war taking place today, between the Orthodox crusaders \u2014 Russia and Ukraine \u2014 is an example of the punishment that was unleashed upon them and is forever glued to them,\u201d the ISIS article said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When it comes to the Islamic State, it appears equally hostile to Russia, the United States and Iran, Mr. Clarke said in an interview. \u201cIt is just different flavors of apostate for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Hwaida Saad<!-- --> and <!-- -->Milana Mazaeva<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the past few months, deep in the forbidding deserts of central Syria, Russian forces have quietly joined the Syrian military in intensifying attacks against Islamic State strongholds, including bombing what local news reports called the dens and caves where the extremist fighters hide. While the world was focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/24\/multimedia\/24russia-extremism-jkqb\/24russia-extremism-jkqb-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3601,12930,211,12931,111],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8463,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461\/revisions\/8463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}