Posted on 10/04/2015 5:10:35 AM PDT by JPX2011
How do you know what the text says? It all appears to be in Russian.
Now
Russian experts, among them Alexei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center and Roman Silantiev of the Ministry of Justice, estimate that there are thousands of Salafist prayer groups in Russia today, with Islamism having spread “practically to all regions of Russia, including Siberia and even the Far East.” Russian scholars put the number of Russian Salafis at 700,000, and while far from all Salafis are militant Islamists, those “sympathetic” to ISIL are estimated at between 200,000 and half a million.
“Will the joining of Islamism and separatism tear Russia apart?” asked the headline in one of Russia's most popular newspaper, Nezavisimaya gazeta, this past January. This is not a new question but it has loomed large over the past decade. Russian students of radical Islam have warned of a possible nexus between separatism and fundamentalism. “Ichkeria” became a “field study” for many “Islamists from the Volga area,” wrote one of the experts.
http://warontherocks.com/2016/09/the-coming-of-the-russian-jihad-part-i/
Americans generally believe that Russia is afraid of Islamic terrorism as much as the U.S.A. They are reminded of the war in Chechnya, the hostage crisis at the Beslan School in 2004 and at the Moscow Theater in 2002, and of the apartment house blasts in Moscow in 1999, where over 200 people were killed. It is clear that Russians are also targets of terrorism today.
But in all these events, the participation of the FSB, Federal Security Service, inheritor to the KGB, is also clear. Their involvement in the Moscow blasts has been proven by lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB Colonel. For this he was illegally imprisoned, and is now suffering torture and deprivation of medical assistance, from which he is not likely to survive.
A key distinction between Russian and American attitudes towards Islamic terrorism is that while for America terrorism is largely seen as an exterior menace, Russia uses terrorism as an object as a tool of the state for manipulation in and outside the home country. Islamic terrorism is only part of the world of terrorism. Long before Islamic terrorism became a global threat, the KGB had used terrorism to facilitate the victory of world Communism.
This leads to the logical connection between Russian and Islamic terrorism. The late Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London in November, 2006, told me that his former FSB colleagues had trained famous Al-Qaeda terrorists Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Juma Namangoniy during the 1980s and 1990s. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, has been responsible for the murder of U.S. nationals outside the United States. Before his death, Juma Namangoniy (Jumabai Hojiyev), a native of Soviet Uzbekistan, was a right-hand man of Osama bin Laden in charge of the Taliban's northern front in Afghanistan.
In 1996, Alexander Litvinenko was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia, who was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan, Northern Caucasus, in 1996-1997.
At that time, Litvinenko was the Head of the Subdivision for Internationally Wanted Terrorists of the First Department of the Operative-Inquiry Directorate of the FSB Anti-Terrorist Department. He was ordered to undertake the delicate mission of securing Al-Zawahiri from unintentional disclosure by the Russian police. Though Al-Zawahiri had been brought to Russia by the FSB using a false passport, it was still possible for the police to learn about his arrival and report to Moscow for verification. Such a process could disclose Al-Zawahiri as an FSB collaborator.
In order to prevent this, Litvinenko visited a group of the highly placed police officers to notify them in advance. "If you get information about some suspicious Arabs arriving in the Caucasus, please report it to me before informing your leadership", he told them.
Juma Namangoniy was once a student of the Saboteur Training Center of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB in 1989-91. The school was notorious for the international terrorists who matriculated from it. It now belongs to the FSB, and since only KGB staff officers were allowed to study there, Juma Namangoniy's presence clearly suggests that he was much more than a civil collaborator.
Mohammed Atta, the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, Czech Republic, five months before the attack. But Iraqi intelligence was just a client of Russia's intelligence service. It brings a new understanding to the fact that President Putin was the first foreign President to call President Bush on 9/11. One may conjecture that he knew in advance what was to happen.
Muslim Name and Communist Heart
Tartars have always been patriotic to Russia. Their independent kingdom was conquered by Russia in the 16th century, but their gentry were allowed to join the Russian upper class and enjoy all its privileges. Even today, many Russian families of noble origin have Tartar origins. Russia has a half-millennium of experience in turning conquered Muslim nations into obedient citizens by bribing their elite.
There are many Soviet Muslims, therefore, who seem to face no conflict of spirit. One can be a Muslim in name only, whose heart belongs to Communism. There have been a lot of such people among Russian Muslims, especially among the Tartars. The Soviet Union has typically preferred to appoint them as ambassadors to Muslim countries. Their Muslim names give them a pass to the local society, but their Communist hearts order them to serve world Communism and not the world of Islam.
In the Soviet period, the highest leadership of the Muslim republics like Uzbekistan were unofficially allowed to practice Islam under the guise of folk rites, even though their Russian colleagues were severely reprimanded for participating in such Christian "rites" as Christmas or Easter. Unlike today, Soviet cartoonists were able to mock Islam as they mocked all other religions and it didn't bring any special reaction.
Muslims of the Uzbek and other Central Asian republics' elite joined the KGB intelligence in order to spy on fellow Muslim countries. In the KGB, I have met a lot of such quasi-Muslim officers.
Russia Grows Muslim
Putin continues the traditional Russian policy of giving privileges to the Muslim elite. Today's Russian Minister of Healthcare, Mikhail Zurabov, is a Chechen. His political agenda includes the total destruction of the Russian healthcare system, looking like revenge for the war in Chechnya. Putin shows no concern over that.
Strategically Russia is surrendering to the Muslim world. The Russian population is declining rapidly, being undermined by 70 years of Communist experiment and the cold indifference of post-communist rulers. Annually, Russia is losing 900 thousand people who are being replaced by Muslims from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Islam is now the second-largest religion in Russia, where it may total up to 28 million adherents. Because of this, Russia was able to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 2003.
Russia's great qualitative population change represents both a departure from the past and a strengthening link with it. The synergies between the history of Russia's national policies of terrorism and the radical Islamic terrorism that it is spreading around the world are natural partners that may severely impact on America's own future.
_________________
Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former Lt. Colonel in the KGB who defected to the United States in 1993, is an intelligence expert and specialist on Japan, about which he has written six books. His newest book Russian-American, A New KGB Asset will be published in late 2007. This article was first published by Gerard Group International, Intel Analyses, 31 August 2007.
Russia and Islam are not Separate: Why Russia backs Al-Qaeda
http://web.archive.org/web/20091001203229/http://cicentre.com/Documents/russia_islam_not_separate.html
This book, co-authored by Alexander Litvinenko, the victim of the notorious 2006 London polonium poisoning, attempts to demonstrate that modern Russia's most fundamental problems do not result from the radical reforms of the liberal period of Yeltsin's terms as president, but from the open or clandestine resistance offered to these reforms by the Russian special services. It was they who unleashed the first and second Chechen wars, in order to divert Russia away from the path of democracy and towards dictatorship, militarism, and chauvinism.
The authors alleged that the Russian apartment bombings and other September 1999 terrorist acts were committed by the Federal Security Service. Litvinenko and Felshtinsky wrote that the bombings were a false flag operation intended to justify Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power.
Originally published in 2002
(223 pages)
http://www.libertypublishinghouse.com/Blowing_up_Russia_E.aspx
___________________________________________________
Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006
The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
___________________________________________________
"Over the next six years, Litvinenko became an anti-Kremlin journalist, accusing the Russian government of abuses during their battles with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the FSB's alleged 1999 bombing of 300 people in explosions at apartments in Russia that was used to justify its second war against Chechnya.
He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB. He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri."
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/237045/long-awaited-investigation-alexander-v-litvinenkos-arnold-ahlert
___________________________________________________
Litvinenko: A deadly trail of polonium [poisoned by Putin?...case now concluding]
BBC - Magazine ^ | July 28, 2015
"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..."
"When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..."
Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry.
Dombey says there is only one place where it can be produced in the quantities used in the murder - a military nuclear reactor at the Avangard plant in the closed city of Sarov. Sarov was where Russia produced its first nuclear bomb in the days of Joseph Stalin. This is a clear link to the Russian state.
But why would the Russian state want him dead? ..."
It is clear that Alexander Litvinenko had powerful enemies in Russia. ..."
The first red line concerns a book he co-wrote called Blowing Up Russia about a terrorist attack in Moscow in September 1999. Chechen separatists were blamed.
"Litvinenko claimed that Russia's own security services carried out the attack to give Putin the cover to launch a new Chechen war. Some 300 people had died. ..."
His co-author, Felshtinsky, stands by their conclusions and says: "This [attack] helped Putin...the reaction of the population was we now have to have a strong leader. ..."
The inquiry will now hear secret evidence from intelligence agencies in special closed sessions. It will report back at the end of the year and, until then, the mystery will rumble on."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
___________________________________________________
BBC, 27 July 2015
Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect 'cannot testify'
"UK officials believe Dmitry Kovtun and another man, Andrei Lugovoi, poisoned Mr Litvinenko in 2006, which they deny.
Mr Kovtun had been due to appear by videolink from Moscow on Monday, but said he had been unable to get permission from Russian authorities.
Mr Litvinenko's family lawyer said it seemed the case was being manipulated."
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33674469
___________________________________________________
Jan 21 2016...
LONDON - Russian President Vladimir Putin "probably" personally sanctioned the nuclear murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, a British judge ruled Thursday.
The dissident died in 2006 after drinking green tea poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel. Litvinenko had predicted that Russia would assassinate him and claimed on his deathbed that Putin likely ordered his killing.
After a six-month public inquiry, a British judge ruled that the one-time KGB agent was murdered on the orders of Russia's FSB security agency - and that the action was "probably approved" by Putin. ..."
The Muslim hierarchy in Chechnya, likely with the support of Ramzan Kadyrov, is seeking to promote the kind of Sufism its followers practice as a unifying force for Muslims throughout the Russian Federation, something already triggering new conflicts among that broader community in which historically sufism has played a smaller role.
At the end of Augusst, Grozny hosted a World Islamic Conference on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the birth of former Chechen president Akhmad-khadzhi Kadyrov, the father of the current Chechen leader. It adopted a declaration that it styled as a fetwa making the Sufi kind of Islam in Chechnya obligatory for all Russia’s Muslims.
The fetwa/declaration is available in full at http://putyislama.ru/kerla/4226. It has now been analyzed in detail for the Portal-Credo portal by Valery Yemelyanov at Moscow’s Time and World analytic center (http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=comment&id=2168) who also considers its implications for Russia’s Muslims as a whole.
The document offers an open-ended list of “’incorrect Muslims,’” including Wahhabis, ISIS followers, and other sectarians, with the clear indication that one might add any others that one didn’t like, including Al Qaeda, Sunni Modernists, Shiites, Alawites, as well as representatives of other Sufi tariqats.
emelyanov says, this fetwa/declaration only exacerbates the religious situation among Russia’s Muslims and is likely to shift its status from “a softly latent” form of disagreement into “an open and sharp” one.
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.se/2016/09/chechnyas-plan-to-use-sufism-to-unite.html
Is Kadyrov trying to create a state-sanctioned Muslim sect Kremlin can control?
As AFR writes:
In Putin’s geostrategic vision, Saudi Arabia remains the crucial US ally in the region. Putin isn’t content to be allied only with Alawite Syria and Shiite Iran. He’d like to make inroads among Sunni Muslims as well.
Criticising Saudi exclusivism is a way for Putin to try to weaken Saudi Arabia’s regional influence – while enhancing his own. Egypt and the Sheikh of Al-Azhar are tools to use in pursuit of the goal.
The upshot is that while undercutting Wahhabism and the practice of takfir are good things, they’re being pursued here by Putin for the most self-interested of reasons – and against US interests.
Sufism has been the dominant form of Islam in Chechnya for almost two centuries but was forced underground in Soviet times.
During the 19th century, its followers, called murids, drew strength from their belief as they battled the soldiers of the invading Russian empire.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/nov/22/chechnya.tomparfitt
There are two main Sufi groups in Chechnya the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naqshbandi and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qadiriyya Kadyrov is formally a Qadirriyya.
But,
Kadyrov, who in his entire political career has never quoted publicly a single sura from the Koran, appears to be setting himself up as the supreme arbiter and primary defender of “pure” Islam in the North Caucasus.
http://www.rferl.org/a/chechnya-kadyrov-ingushetia-yevkurov-mufi/27532102.html
Chechnya's more than one million people have been among the most oppressed, and the most warlike, in both tsarist and Soviet times. The province declared independence in late 1991, as the Soviet Union was disintegrating. Russia's opposition to the nationalist uprising sparked the first Chechen war (1994-96), which left it a semi-autonomous, semi-dependent state. When war flared again in late 1999, Putin was prime minister and made most decisions in place of an ailing President Boris Yeltsin.
A better prepared Russian army, fighting a war brutal on both sides, reduced much of the capital, Grozny, to rubble. By 2000, Moscow had ended most organized resistance, though guerrilla activities continued until 2007, when Ramzan Kadyrov, son of a former Chechen president and strongly backed by Putin, imposed an often corrupt and savage dictatorship. Separatism was suppressed, Grozny rebuilt and Chechnya remained loyal to Moscow.
Chechnya is the model for war in Syria, Grozny the model for the assault on Aleppo.
Perhaps the plan is to make Kadyrov the new "King" of Syria?
Putin Is Playing by Grozny Rules in Aleppo
The playbook for Moscow’’s brutal bombardment of Aleppo was written during the Russian president’s first take-no-prisoners war.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/29/putin-is-playing-by-chechen-rules-in-aleppo-syria-russia/
“Is Kadyrov trying to create a state-sanctioned Muslim sect Kremlin can control?”
Seems your answer to this is a yes. Is that a bad thing?
Not exactly the same, but I see similarities with GWB’s vision of Iraq. For example, the constitution still Islamic, yet envisioned to be pro-USA; new gov’t elected but in a controlled fashion, though give the Iraqis a sense of participation thru voting.
Problem is was that one needs to tightly & militarily control that approach & situation for decades in a ‘democratic model’ (such as in Iraq) too. The Islamists still fought what they viewed as ‘invaders’, and once American troops pulled out, all hell broke loose.
What’s the alternative?
Can all countries have democracy? Yes. Can they have democracy now? No.
That is the lesson learned in the Arab world.
This is a well-established tactic by communists. They plant their operatives inside churches or other religious institutions. With some efforts, they could co-opt them, installing their puppets.
Though that’s not unique to Communists. Muslims for example used that tactic too, centuries ago, with Zoroastrians, and still do. It’s one reason Parsi Zoroastrians are still reticent to allow conversion or even permit non-Zoroastrians to enter Z temples - because some pretend with a sole purpose to infiltrate the community and gradually undermine it.
That’s a great point.
The lesson was there and should’ve been learned some 35 years ago when the Shah was toppled. All they’ve got since has been a semblance of democracy, at best.
Thanks for the ping!
Gaynutdin was even more direct: “In the spiritual-cultural development of the Muslim peoples,” knowledge about Sunni Islam in the form of Muslim modernism (jadidism) played “a no less positive role” in the dissemination of Islam than did Sufism. Moreover, the jadids had an influence throughout the Muslim world from the Ottoman Empire to Xinjiang.
The Chechen mufti has responded to this in the best tradition of the Soviet past: he refused to join the argument about the acceptability of diversity within Islam and the importance of modernism in particular and instead accused the SMR of harboring Islamist radicals on its staff.
And that exchange between the defenders of modernist Islam and its opponents is also a recrudescence of the Soviet past when communist officials attacked the former more intensively than the latter believing that this was the best way to root out Islam in the population by allowing only the most reactionary to continue to preach.
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.se/2016/10/russias-muslim-leaders-fighting-over.html
Since the start of the school year, Byurchiiyev says, the situation in the North Caucasus has deteriorated regardless of what officials say. Ever more pupils are being persecuted for wearing hijabs. The death squads, which experts say are linked to the authorities, have stepped up their activities. And kidnappings have increased in number across the region.
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.se/2016/10/appearance-of-homo-sacer-in-north.html
More about this Soviet strategy is found here http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-ugly-truth-about-algeria-7146
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.