As Russia mourns its terror victims following Monday’s bombing of the Moscow metro, conspiracy theories swiftly blamed Chechen Muslim separatists, and Muslims living in Russia in general, of orchestrating the reckless attacks.
Turkish and American experts, however, are increasingly alarmed about the growing amount of danger on the fault lines between Muslims and Russians.
Two female suicide bombers killed 39 people and injured 63 on packed Moscow metro trains on Monday. Suspected suicide bombers killed at least 12 people in Russia’s North Caucasus on Wednesday, two days after the deadly attacks in Moscow that authorities linked to insurgents from the region. The day following the attacks in Dagestan, terrorists also detonated a bomb killing two and injuring dozens in the same region’s Khasavyurt district.
Prominent Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen immediately posted a message of condolence through Today’s Zaman and stressed that terrorism can by no means be associated with any religion or belief. In his message of condolence and condemnation of terrorism, Gülen said no matter what the reason or aim, terrorism can never be justified. Terrorism, which threatens something as sacred as human life and which eliminates security in society, Gülen noted, is an action so degenerate that it cannot be sanctioned by any religion, understanding or viewpoint.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declared that Russia would act “without compromise” to root out terrorists. Some Russian lawmakers on Tuesday called for the return of capital punishment for convicted terrorists, and President Medvedev in televised remarks called on judges to consider amending terrorism laws. Analysts are deeply concerned that the government’s rhetoric might lead to sharp cleavages in society, further polarizing and discriminating against innocent Muslims who have no connection with any organization advocating violence.
Russia is home to nearly 23 million Muslims and has observer status in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). “Russia is the most reliable partner of the Islamic world and the most faithful defender of its interests,” Then-Russian President Vladimir Putin said in 2005 in Chechnya’s capital of Grozny, clearly indicating Russia’s interest in building good relations with the Muslim world.
Chechnya was initially the scene where most of the violent clashes between Russian security forces and Chechen militants took place, but with the passage of time, violent conflicts spread to other autonomous Russian republics with Muslim populations which then sought independence and thus started their own fight against Moscow. As a result, violent conflicts spread to Dagestan and Ingushetia, two small entities now marked by chronic insecurity, with tumultuous internal politics and fraught relations with Moscow.
On March 2, Russian Special Forces took 16 militants -- five of them dead -- while they were lurking in ambush in the Ingush village of Ekazhevo. “The Moscow bombing could be in retaliation for the killed militants a month ago,” Sinan Oğan, the president of the Turkish Center for International and Strategic Analysis (TÜRKSAM), told Sunday’s Zaman.
Meanwhile, Muslim scholars from a dozen countries made a statement on Thursday condemning the suicide bombings by terrorists in Moscow and Dagestan as “criminal terrorist attacks” that violated their faith.
A report called “Violence in the North Caucasus” released by the Center for Strategic and International Relations (CSIS) on Jan. 14 stated that 2009 was especially violent in the North Caucasus. In those 12 months, CSIS tracked more than 1,100 incidents of violence -- compared to 795 in 2008 -- many of which were deadly. The report said the most alarming was the number of suicide bombings in the North Caucasus, which nearly quadrupled from 2008, with the majority occurring in Chechnya. On Monday, Azerbaijani police officers detained seven suspects, of whom three were women and one Chechen, who entered the country illegally from neighboring Georgia and accused them of planting explosives on the roof of a kindergarten and a school. “I do not think there is a direct link between each and every terror attack or investigative success that occurs in the context of the North Caucasus,” Ilgar Mammadov, the co-founder of the Republican Alternative (REAL) civic union, said.
“Given the current near-hysterical political climate in Russia, including the immediate -- if probably correct -- assumption that so-called ‘black widow’ women from Chechnya or at least the Muslim North Caucasus are to blame for the Moscow subway attacks, I think one can anticipate a general ‘anti-Muslim’ atmosphere to descend over the Russian Federation as a whole, possibly involving the sort of random violence seen in the United States following the attack of Sept. 11,” Professor Thomas Goltz of Montana State University and author of “Chechnya Diary” said.
Forecasting this concern, well-known religious scholars from across the Muslim world gathered in Mardin last week to review a 14th century legal verdict sometimes used to justify acts of extremist violence. Scholars at the summit contended that the religious verdict calling jihad justified warfare issued by Ibn Taymiyyah could not be interpreted -- as some extremists have -- to condone violence or terrorism, saying that it rather emphasized that non-Muslims needed to be taken care of as opposed to attacked. Furthermore, Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs President Ali Bardakoğlu said terrorism in Baghdad “affects us as deeply as terrorism in the metros of Moscow, Tokyo, London and Spain.”
Pointing to the danger with respect to the Muslim population in Russia, Kamer Kasım, an expert at the International Strategic and Research Organization (USAK), said if the hatred boils over into the streets, then Russia’s relations with Muslim countries may worsen. “It will also be heavily criticized until Russia gets a good mark on its human rights record in Chechnya,” the expert said.
“There is certainly a growing danger among the Muslim population in Russia,” Mithat Çelikpala, an expert on the Caucasus, said. Noting that Russians are lumping all Muslims together without distinguishing al-Qaeda members, for instance, from other urban Muslims, the expert said as spring arrives the Russian army will prepare for large operations in the North Caucasus.
Oğan said he doubts there will be an increasing trend of racism on the state level. “But there could be a more dangerous development: Discrimination against innocent Muslims may increase among the public,” he said. Noting that already there is racism against one segment of the society, particularly those from the Caucasus and non-Slavs, Oğan said there is now a danger of discrimination spilling over and including all Muslims.
On the day of the Moscow bombings, two Muslim women with headscarves were reportedly beaten while riding the metro. “I hope these are individual incidents and will not spread. These kinds of things may halt Russia’s recent initiative to normalize ties with Muslims. Terrorist attacks in Moscow will also make the lives of members of Muslim communities living in Russia miserable,” Oğan said.