The challenge to Putin on the eve of the Winter Games in Sochi

The challenge to Putin on the eve of the Winter Games in Sochi Another chapter of global terrorism was written, once more terrorists attacked Russia in the city of Volgograd, this city that carries the past as Stalingrad because it was the scene of most heroic battle of WWII causing Nazi Germany to start to retreat and eventually be defeated.

The challenge to Putin on the eve of the Winter Games in Sochi and the recent Volgograd attacks.

Another chapter of global terrorism was written, once more terrorists attacked Russia in the city of Volgograd, this city that carries the past as Stalingrad because it was the scene of most heroic battle of WWII causing
Nazi Germany to start to retreat and eventually be defeated.

This sad new chapter was written with two attacks, the first at the central station in Volgograd on December 29 and the second, a public bus on 30 December totaling 36 dead. The Russian official investigations showed that the subway attack was perpetrated by a young Islamic from the Republic of Dagestan and the attack on the bus by a boy from the region of Mari El.

There is no doubt that these attacks be programmed to coincide with the onset of the winter games in the resort of Sochi on the Black Sea, as terrorism aims to destabilize the government in Russia, impose fear in the people, take away attention from the participants of the games and even prevent the games from happening. The reasons are the same, a minority supposedly seeking independence from Russian territory.

The nature of the attacks and the strategy with which they were organized, in fact has its different elements in previous attacks that occurred in Russia. The terrorists identified in the latest attacks coming from Dagestan, breaking with the regularity of Chechnya, the attacks that occurred were of low proportion, which
demonstrates that their ability to organize is getting weaker though not less difficult to locate. The Russian capital city has not figured in recent attacks, and naturally, an attack on Moscow strengthens the image of Putin against terrorism and not the reverse, for that reason they did not attack in the region of Moscow.

Volgograd was probably chosen for the attack due to being an important and emblematic Russian city that was not maintaining a rigorous security for possible attacks, a situation completely different from the city of Sochi which is monitored much more.

After the pacification of the city of Grozny and Chechnya, the conflict in that region ceased, the majority of Chechen terrorist leaders were killed, Shamil Basaev, Amir Khattab and Movsar Baraev, are not currently logging in attacks or operations on the Russian army on a large scale, this Russian victory in the region was a blow to Islamic extremism that has been forced to concentrate and take its recruits and send them for training in the Dagestan region. Funding coming from Al Qaeda and other subsidiaries has decreased since the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan have worn a lot in their campaigns against the U.S..

With the concentration of supporting Islamic extremism in the war in Syria Al-Qaeda has focused in that area for the time being but it has not stopped the financial contributions to the Northern Caucasus. The main leader currently funded is Dokku Umarov who proclaims himself the emir of the North Caucasus, based in Dagestan and his goal is to expand Islamic extremism in the Russian territory, using young widows and young people without financial conditions, without a strong education foundation and structure and whose miserable subsistence means they can be easily duped into fighting for goals and ideals that in fact they do not even know whether or not they believe in, this being the blueprint of terrorism in Russia today.

With Chechnya stabilized Russia has a chance to get an absolute win in the war against terrorism on its territory since Dagestan is the only Republic articulating some kind of operation, thus in his last speech in Volgograd Vladimir Putin emphasizes that he will put an end to this, annihilating terrorism in Russia. Indeed neither the U.S. nor the UN can criticize this Russian initiative since the attacks in Boston were perpetrated by Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother trained in Dagestan, and furthermore the international community has realized that the Russian argument of non-intervention in Syria was correct because removing Bashar al Assad 's power would bring terrorists to power in Syria.

Dimas Melo Wigerinck
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