Saturday 5-Jul-2008                    

PAUL MURPHY, Ph.D., is a former U.S. government senior counterterrorism official who lived, worked and traveled extensively in Russia and Central Asia between 1994 and 2004. He studied in the former Soviet Union, and worked in civil society development, higher education, and business in Russia.  As a U.S. congressional special advisor in 2002, he dealt with issues related to counterterrorism cooperation with Russia.  His latest book entitled: “Wolves of Islam, Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror” was published by Brassey’s Inc. in December 2004.

Has the American position changed since September 11th, 2001, concerning Chechen separatists who Russians perceive as being part of an international terrorist network?

It has. I know that as Russian intelligence pursued President Yeltsin’s 1996 order to uncover Chechnya’s international connections, Khattab’s links to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban began to surface.  This ultimately lead the Kremlin to conclude that the Saudi who had earlier fought the Soviets in Afghanistan was Osama bin Laden’s representative in the North Caucasus, and that certain Arabs under Khattab’s command in Chechnya were  actually prominent al-Qaeda personnel assigned to him.  In 2002, the United States confirmed that Khattab is “connected” to Osama bin Laden. The U.S. government has also acknowledged that there is an international terrorist presence in Chechnya that has links to Osama bin Laden.  Even Aslan Maskhadov, the president of the now non-existent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, has admitted that “international terrorist networks, including al-Qaeda, have established themselves in Chechnya.”  

The financial links seem to be strong and have been acknowledged by the United States. The holy war against Russia started in August 1999 by Basayev’s and Khattab’s invasion of Dagestan, has not been conducted in isolation of the financial, material, and fighter support of the supreme Islamic commander-in-chief.  It is impossible to determine the exact amount of Osama bin Laden’s contribution. The United States will only say that it has been a substantial amount of money.  Bin Laden himself has admitted personal financial investment, but he won’t tell us how much it is.  Moreover, after the seizure of the school in Beslan, North Ossetia, last September, he put out a call for Muslims worldwide to financially support the jihad against Russia.

I have often been told by Western observers that if Russia had just given Chechnya independence after the war between them ended in 1996, a second war--and all the terror today--could have been avoided.  I contend that such recognition would not have prevented a new war or the terror, because Udugov, Basayev, and Khattab were already conspiring to take Russian territory in Dagestan by force to carve out a new Taliban like Islamic state with Osama bin Laden’s knowledge and promise of financial help.  Recognition of Chechnya’s independence in 1997 would not have stopped that process, only accelerated it.  After all, Basayev quit his Chechen government job in July 1998 to work full time on the idea. It became his obsession, and he got millions from Osama bin Laden and others to do it.  The August 1999 invasion of Dagestan and the bombing of apartment building in Moscow and Volgodonsk a month later were the results.

I would like to digress briefly and comment on the theory that the FSB intentionally blew up the apartment buildings as a pretext to send Russian troops back into Chechnya and guarantee Putin’s presidential election bid.  I think this idea is pure fantasy.  I lived in Moscow at the time and heard the rumor within days after the terror attack.  The Chechen president’s inability to control the actions of extremists like Basayev and stop criminal gangs from kidnapping Russians and foreigners to sell them as slaves or collect millions of dollars in ransom—not to mention Basayev’s declaration of holy war on Russia and his invasion of Dagestan--gave the Kremlin plenty of reason to take military action against Chechnya in 1999.  Why would the FSB have needed to blow up apartment buildings as pretext?

But back to your question, the United States now has a much clearer picture of the personalities, ideology, and allegiances of those waging terror against Russia thanks to improved intelligence cooperation and what we have learned from our own war on terrorism. I think it would be difficult to find anyone in the U.S. government today who would deny linkage of the extremists led by Shamil Basayev, which now constitute the majority of forces fighting Russia. Basayev now calls the shots; Maskhadov is no longer relevant.

Basayev subscribes to the worldwide jihad misson of al-Qaeda and is conducting an ideologically motivated religious war against Russia.  In fact, if it were up to his propagandist, Movladi Udugov, Chechens would become al-Qaeda’s front line fighters. “We are ready to become the vanguard of Muslim nations and the defenders of Islam worldwide,” Udugov proclaimed to the world in 2003. He likes to boast, but the United States does worry that Osama bin Laden might be tempted one day to employ Chechens  to attack U.S. targets.  That is what drives the U.S. government to say that Chechen terrorist organizations “have been determined to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.” 

Do you think then that the link you describe is a direct or indirect one?

Frankly, I don’t believe that classification matters much.  But if you are asking me if Basayev is taking orders from Osama bin Laden, then my answer would be “No.”  However, the relationship between them and al-Qaeda is evolving, and I believe it’s taking on new dimensions that include the potential of joint operations outside Russia. 

Remember the bombing of the Chechen government administrative building in Grozny in December 2002?  Shortly before that attack, French intelligence broke up a “Chechen network” based in French that was in the final stages of preparing an attack against the Russian embassy in Paris. At least three of those arrested had fought in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and trained in toxic substances with an al-Qaeda instructor in the Pankisi Gorge.  They also had links with radical Islamic terrorist cells in Germany and Great Britain, and had worked with an al-Qaeda cell in Spain to purchase and smuggle military material into Chechnya.

The existence of this Chechen network indicates that Basayev may have planned a terror attack abroad to roughly coincide with the Chechen government building bombing.  More importantly though, it provides the first evidence that Chechen extremists are thinking about international terror operations and are organizing with al-Qaeda’s help.

The 9-11 Commission report and what we now know about the airplane hijackers who crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon gives further insight into the nature of the relationship. The mastermind of the attack on America, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had arranged to meet with Khattab in Chechnya in the spring of l997, but had trouble transiting Azerbaijan, turned around and went back to Pakistan. He then joined up with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, who had also tried to get to Chechnya in 1997 to see Khattab, but instead spent several months in a Dagestani jail on a visa violation.  Moreover, as many as half of the 9/11 hijackers had spent time in Chechnya, fought in the first year of the second war, intended to go to fight in Chechnya before getting their U.S. assignments, or had recruited fighters for Chechnya.

Could you speak a little bit about the rumors that Chechens have turned up in other countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Chechen fighters have integrated into some al-Qaeda fighting units.  Chechens were found in Afghanistan in 2001, in Pakistan in 2002 and 2004, and may be now in Iraq.

A Russian Duma deputy told me that Chechens captured in Afghanistan in 2001were being held at the Guantanamo detention facility.  What he really meant was that four nationals from the North Caucasus region, but not ethnic Chechens, were being held there.  All were returned home this past summer.  However, Chechens were fighting in Afghanistan.  Some were caught by the Northern Alliance and turned over directly to Russia.  The U.S. military also killed some.

I describe three instances in my book where Chechens fought Pakistani troops in 2002 and again in 2004.   The first time, soldiers assaulting an al-Qaeda hideout on the border of Afghanistan killed two Chechen fighters and captured a third—a fifteen-year-old boy.  The remaining fighters fled, but not before killing ten Pakistani troops in a gun battle.  Four of the Chechen fighters who got away were killed a month later at a Pakistani security checkpoint. 

More Chechen fighters were killed on 15 June 2004, when Pakistani troops stopped a minibus for a document check in the southern Waziristan province.  Four days earlier, Pakistani soldiers had killed twenty-five terrorists, some of whom were Chechens, in a ground and air operation against al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in the province.

Russians tell me that as many 200-300 Chechen fighters and others experienced in making suicide car bombs are currently in Iraq.  I don’t know if that is true or not.   I recently asked a returning American private security guard if he knew anything about this. He had heard lots of rumors, and he said that intelligence briefers also talked about their presence.  We won’t really know for sure until we catch or kill one.

Could you tell us why Chechen Women are becoming Terrorists?

There are four dimensions to the answer.  One is the economics of suicide terror.  It is the cheapest kind of warfare, requiring minimal monetary, material, technical, and human investment--all practical considerations to any group that is short on funding and lacks the necessary manpower to fight an effective guerrilla war.  It can also be a way to make money. For Shamil Basayev, suicide terror is a practical means of fundraising; a way to attract the financial investment of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and other Islamic extremist organizations.  Major attacks like the Dubrovka theater siege and Beslan generate huge sums of money. 

Second, is the killing power of suicide terror—the terrorist’s ability to target precisely and inflict high casualties.  Since the first female suicide bomber drove her explosive laden truck into a police facility four years ago, Basayev’s reign of suicide terror has killed and wounded nearly 3000 people.  I just finished doing the terror statistics in Russia for 2004.  Of the 681 people killed and 1181 wounded and missing, suicide bombing or suicide group attacks like those in Ingushetia in June and Beslan in the fall account for all but a handful of the dead and wounded.  By the way, I did not count any guerrilla skirmishes with Russian or pro-Moscow Chechen forces in these numbers.  

The third dimension relates to why women have been the preferred bomb delivery vehicle since 2000, although this may be changing since there were four men and only three women carrying out suicide bombings this year. The answer is that women are more expendable than men as combat assets, especially since they significantly outnumber Chechen men who are still needed to fight the guerilla war.  Moreover there are large numbers of widows who will probably never marry again and lots of single girls who may not marry either because of the shortage of men.  And then a woman has a distinct tactical advantage because she does do not arouse as much suspicion and can more easily penetrate the target than a man. The macho male Russian policeman is still ill equipped psychologically to deal with the female terrorist because he has difficulty ever imagining that a woman can be a threat.  Despite numerous female suicide bombing in Moscow, it is rare to see a policeman stop a woman and ask for her “dokumenti” (passport) unless she is very pretty and his intent is to flirt with her. 

The fourth dimension gets to the question of why Chechen women are willing to kill themselves. The most popular explanation is that they are taking their own lives out of revenge for being raped by a Russian soldier, the loss of a husband or another male member of the family, and a ruined life.  I could not find a single case of a woman becoming a suicide bomber because she or any member of her family, or friends, had been raped by Russian soldiers.  There are no suicide notes left to that effect, nor have parents claimed that their daughter became a shakhida because she was raped, nor have any of those suicide bombers caught alive said they planned to kill themselves because they had been raped by Russian soldiers.  This is not to say that rapes do not occasionally occur; the case of Colonel Budanov is well known.     

Frankly, I believe that the revenge angle--that is the idea that Chechen women are killing themselves out of grief for a dead husband or because they have lost everything in the war and are destitute--is exaggerated. This explanation is too black and white.  In the first place, one would think that revenge out of grief would generate a spontaneous act.  I know of only two women who reacted this way by arming themselves with grenades and going out into the street to hunt down those they believed were responsible for the death of their husbands.  Chechen women have a remarkable instinct of survival.  The majority refuses to give up and do not resort to suicide terror to solve their problems.

On the other hand, the idea that these are widows bent on revenge is a valuable propaganda tool and is aggressively promoted by those interested in putting the blame on the Kremlin for the terror in Russia today. This idea was first promoted by the leader of the Dubrovka siege and picked up by sensationalist Russian journalists who dubbed the women at Dubrovka “black widows.”  The term has been used loosely ever since to describe Chechen female suicide terrorists regardless of their marital status.  In fact, there were few widows at Dubrovka, some of the 19 women there were unmarried teenage girls, others were there with their husbands, other family members, and friends.  I say in my book that it was very much a family affair.  None were destitute.  One was a medical student; another a businesswoman; and another an unemployed actress with a job at Grozny’s university.  One lived and worked in Moscow. Few could really say that they had lost everything.

And then there is Zulikhan, the woman who blew herself up at a Moscow rock and beer festival in July 2003.  She apparently did so out of a need to cleanse herself of an incestuous relationship with her step brother. Zarema, who was caught in Moscow days later, told police that she had decided to become a suicide bomber so she could repay her grandmother for the jewelry she had stolen and sold to move to Moscow with her young daughter, and to redeem herself in the eyes of her family for that sin. Zarema was a widow, but her husband had not been killed fighting in the war.  She had kidnapped her daughter from her husband’s family which had taken the child to raise after the death of Zarema’s husband.  She desperately wanted to start a new life in Moscow with her daughter, but got caught by her family who shunned her. 

The first suicide bomber, Khava Barayeva, killed herself to inspire others to jihad.  Other women become suicide terrorists because Basayev personally asks them to, or because they genuinely believe it is a guaranteed way to get to “paradise.” 

I talk about these and other factors in Wolves of Islam, but the subject is going to be the primary focus of a forthcoming book called Allah’s Angels: Chechen Women and Children at War.