We Were Not Born Yesterday

The act of terrorism in Moscow, planned by three militants trained in the Afghan-Pakistani region and averted by our intelligence agencies, reminds society once again that terrorism is not asleep. During the Federal Security Service operation in Moscow’s suburban town Orehovo-Zyevo, two suspects were killed and one was arrested.

I think the recent terrorist activity in Russia hasn’t come as a surprise for the National Antiterrorism Committee. After the events in Boston were followed by increased measures to fight terrorism, not only in the U.S. but also in Western Europe, it was possible to predict that terrorist activity would increase in other regions. Global terrorism pours from one region to the next, with terrorist organization leaders looking for a place on the world map where the ratio between the effect of a terrorist act and expected counterterrorism activities will be at a maximum. The Boston terrorism act is a vivid example of this.

Chances are quite high that these neutralized terrorists, trained in the Pakistani tribal area, are connected to the terrorist organization known as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is considered one of the most aggressive and dangerous terrorist organizations not only in Russia, but also in many other countries of the world.

Last Thursday in Idaho, the FBI arrested Fazliddin Kurbanov, an Uzbekistani national suspected of terrorism. He is charged with one count of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, one count of possession of an unregistered destructive device and one count of distributing information related to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction.

In February 2013, two Uzbekistani nationals were arrested in the Moscow area for recruiting people to an international terrorist organization, fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It became known that the two Uzbeks belonged to the Islamic Party of Turkmenistan, which is a part of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Officially, the ultimate political goal of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is to create an Islamic state in Ferganskaya Dolina in Central Asia in the territory of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. However, it seems that this is only a cover for leaders of this extremist movement and their followers to reach their political and economic goals.

Perpetrators of terrorist attacks are raised on radical ideas of militant Islam, though their leaders — like Osman Gazi, the present leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, as well as his predecessor, Osman Odil, killed in Pakistan by a U.S. drone in April 2012 — have highly pragmatic goals. They are not as interested in creating their dream state in Uzbekistan where this movement is prohibited, though they actively serve followers in those countries where they pay big money for helping to redistribute political and economic spheres of influence.

Nowadays, international terrorism is a custom-made business where leaders of radical movements brainwash their followers with ideology while they are rolling in the biggest markets of financial flow. Terrorism could be compared to businesses like the weapons trade, drugs and prostitution in terms of funds turnover.

It is really difficult to undo the knots of interdependence in criminal business when it involves threats to the health and lives of innocent people. Apparently, in order to fight global terrorism, mankind needs to take more active steps to create a global anti-terrorism committee.

What happens now? The Boston events have shown that there is some cooperation between intelligence agencies of other countries; however, it is more pro-forma and therefore not very effective. National interests prevail. Each side thinks, “We were not born yesterday,” and does not quite reveal their secrets of fighting terrorism, meanwhile spying on their partners, which results in deportations and so on. All this is very beneficial for terrorists.