Thursday, April 29, 2010 - 2:10 PM
The State Department's update of its annual list of official terrorist groups is imminent, but the group that just attacked Moscow won't be on the list.
The Caucasus Emirate, which has been waging a jihad against the Russian government, is led by Doku Umarov, who calls himself the "emir of the North Caucasus." He was previously President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, but dissolved that Republic and established the Emirate in its place in 2007 in order to impose sharia law in his territory.
Umarov declared all the way back in 2007 that his group was expanding its struggle to wage war against the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. Last month, he released a video claiming credit for the suicide attacks in Moscow in March that resulted in the deaths of 39 people.
But apparently, the State Department chose not to include Caucasus Emirate in the newest update to its list of foreign terrorist organizations, according to Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-FL, who is calling on the State Department to add the group for the sake of national security and U.S. -Russia relations.
"This is a low profile organization that has continued to carry out high profile acts of terrorism, including the twin bombings in Moscow recently," Hastings told The Cable in an exclusive interview, "They've got a jihad against Russia and the United States. If that ain't a terrorist organization, I don't know what is."
Hastings is introducing a new Congressional resolution Thursday detailing the crimes committed by Caucasus Emirate and urging the State Department to add them to the list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Hastings, who is a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), got involved in the issue after hearing about the group from scores of Russian lawmakers. He said listing the group would be an easy win for U.S.-Russian relations.
"President Obama has pressed the reset button, but too often we find ourselves not trying to do things with the Russians," said Hastings, "The State Department has the opportunity to amend the report to include this organization."
Some experts note that there is internal debate within the Chechen rebel community about whether the group's declarations of jihad against the West is really such a good idea.
"It seems that the Caucasian rebels themselves are frightened by their own ‘war declaration' against the West," Andrei Smirnov wrote in an article for the Jamestown Foundation, "The absurdity of the rebels' declarations lies in the fact that they declare war against the West, and at the same time beg for aid in their anti-Russian struggle."
"Whatever the Caucasian rebels say, it is clear that they do not have much in common with the interests of the international Jihadi movement," Smirnov went on, "This movement has no smaller plans than the Jihadi movement worldwide, but it nonetheless limits itself to activities inside Russia's borders and has no ambitions to grow into an international problem."
...unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a civilian who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and may be detained or prosecuted under the domestic law of the detaining state for such action....
But the Chechens are not just the unlawful combatants, they also hijacked the passenfer plane once, they were fighting in many other countries, such as Afghanistan, Kyrghystan, Kazakhstan, Dagestan... Therefore they fall under the definition of International terrorists.
The State Department should know that the United States House Committee on International Relations in 2003 reported to Congress that:
Chechen separatists
INTERPOL is aware of a case in 2000 in Russia, where __Chechen organized crime groups and terrorist organizations were benefiting from counterfeit good manufacturing and trafficking___. Specifically, in 2000, a joint operation between Russian law-enforcement agencies and private industry resulted in the break-up of a CD manufacturing plant. According to the police officials involved, this counterfeit CD plant was a source of financing for Chechen separatists. The CD plant was run by Chechen organized crime which then remitted funds to Chechen rebels. The FSB (Russian Federal Security Service) estimated that the average monthly earnings of the criminal organization are estimated to have been US$500,000 - 700,000. A number of explosives and arms were also confiscated by the police during raids on the residences of the suspects
The Republicans were calling the spades the spades... Now the Democrats are ready to call the terrorsists "the freedom fighters" again.
Thank you, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-FL, for your efforts to fight terrorism wherever it operates.
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