A jihad was waged at a concert hall in suburban Moscow yesterday. It is tough even to imagine the grief of Russian families touched by this event. However, since I didn’t know any of them (as far as I am aware), a question worked its way from the back of my mind to the front…
“What we know about the attack on a Moscow concert hall” (BBC):
The Islamic State group (IS) has said four of its members carried out the attack.
Vladimir Putin has a supporter of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”). France24 (December 2023) reported that Putin was trying to help Hamas win the ceasefire that it wanted to consolidate its rule over Gaza, re-arm and re-supply its soldiers, etc.:
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is among Israel’s loudest critics and has refused to denounce Hamas’s bloody October 7 attack. … Russia has officially backed calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza at the UN, while early in the war Putin accused Israel of contemplating tactics comparable to Nazi Germany’s brutal siege of what is now Saint Petersburg during World War II.
He’s on the “right side of history” from a progressive Democrat point of view, certainly, and, one might have imagined, from an Islamic point of view. Why does Islamic State not give some credit to a supporter of Islamic Resistance and Palestinian Islamic Jihad? At least refrain from attacking Russians until the battles that began in Gaza on October 7 are resolved?
A reminder of happier times…
This is just stupid.
Don’t pretend you’re not aware of the fact that Muslims have been fighting each other all along, in places like Syria and Yemen and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and Iran have a proxy war going on, Sunnis and Shiites often come into conflict, and Islamic State has been fighting against groups allied with Iran. This is as naive as acting surprised that European countries could ever go to war with each other when they were both Christian.
Joe: Aren’t Muslims united around the idea of eliminating Jews from Islamic lands, which is an advertised Hamas goal and which Putin has therefore been supporting lately? When you think about it, Muslims have made enormous progress toward this goal since 1948. Jews have been substantially eliminated from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Morocco, Egypt, etc. It must be incredibly irksome that Israel is the final redoubt.
Example…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Egypt
In the 1950s, Egypt began to expel its Jewish population (estimated at between 75,000 and 80,000 in 1948), also sequestering Jewish-owned property at this time. As of 2016, the president of Cairo’s Jewish community said that there were 6 Jews in Cairo, all women over age 65, and 12 Jews in Alexandria.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Iraq#Modern_Iraq
Before the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine vote, Iraq’s prime minister Nuri al-Said told British diplomats that if the United Nations solution was not “satisfactory”, “severe measures should [would?] be taken against all Jews in Arab countries”. … In the months leading up to the November 1947 Partition vote, violence against Iraqi Jews increased. … In 1948, the year of Israel’s independence, there were about 150,000 Jews in Iraq. Persecution of Jews greatly increased that year: … In October, the Egyptian paper El-Ahram estimated that as a result of arrests, trials, and sequestration of property, the Iraqi treasury collected some 20 million dinars or the equivalent of 80 million U.S. dollars. … The greatest shock to the Jewish community came with the arrest and execution of businessman Shafiq Ades, a Jewish automobile importer who was the single wealthiest Jew in the country. Ades, who had displayed no interest in Zionism, was arrested on charges of sending military equipment to Israel and convicted by a military tribunal. He was fined $20 million and sentenced to death. His entire estate was liquidated and he was publicly hanged in Basra in September 1948. … With the rise of the Ba’ath Party to power in 1963, restrictions were placed on the remaining Iraqi Jews. Sale of property was banned, and Jews had to carry yellow identity cards. … In 2021 the Jewish Population in Iraq number is fewer than five.
ISIS(-K) is fighting the (very Islamic) Taliban in Afghanistan. They also fought the Syrian and Iraqi government forces, both Islamic states. Interestingly, ISIS in those areas (al Sham) harbored much less ill will towards Israel, even reportedly accepting help like medical care from Israelis in their fight against Assad… But mostly they were helped by Turkey and Arab states.
I read a similar thing.
Putin protected Assad, whereas America would have preferred to depose the dictator and replace him with ISIS.
That was America’s strategy in Egypt (replace Mubarak with Muslim Brotherhood) and in Libya and Iraq as well. Ahhh, the Arab Spring spreading Democracy across the Middle East!!!
How Putin deals with terrorists:
> NY Times: Russia Shows What Happens When Terrorists’ Families Are Targeted
https://archive.md/FFan8
Philip, this Putin’s cynical statement should serve as a preview for you into how real life in Russia looks like. The truth is that, despite many achievements, Russia inherits its organization from Mongol empire and Crimean Khanate. It was subject of those tyrannical prinipalities for the larger part of its history and, as a proselyte, has even bigger disregard for individual rights of its subjects that the original tyrants. En mass, Russian people do not know better life and thus find happiness in perceived might of its state. Perception of state being soft or wrong is a danger in itself for Russian style of government. Seems that US and the West are moving into Russian direction.
IS goes after governments that are venerable — that’s what they did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc. They than take over the population and force them into the Sharia laws and consume the resources of the land to finance their operation.
The attack by ISIS-K in Moscow’s concert hall — being decided entirely by ISIS-K, out of the blues — doesn’t add up at all. What’s there for them to gain by this attack? News coverage? Fame? Retaliation? I think not. I think some entity offered them financing and support if they carry out this attack and I would not be surprised if that entity has something to do with Ukraine.
Absolutely, the tajiks that were caught and their statements are lacking, it’s more like imitation of an ISIS attack. If they were Chechens or Dagestani’s, it’d be a different story. The tajiks say they did it for the money with weapons ready for them in a cache and then made a run for the Ukrainian border. So yes looks like a special services operation vs ISIS martyrdom op.