The Islamic State Strikes in Russia

Robert Spencer in FrontPage: The Islamic State Strikes in Russia

April 4, 2017 10:00 am By Robert Spencer

“Listen, Putin, we will come to Russia and will kill you at your homes” – and subways. My latest in FrontPage:

Ten people were killed and many others injured Monday when an Islamic jihadi exploded a bomb filled with shrapnel on the St. Petersburg metro. Another bomb was found in a different train station but was defused before it exploded. According to Reuters, “authorities had established the identity of the suspected suicide bomber and that the suspect was a 23-year-old from central Asia who had carried an explosive device into the St Petersburg metro in a rucksack” and had links to the Islamic State. And so this jihad attack looks to be the fulfillment of a vow the Islamic State made last summer: to strike in Russia, and strike hard.

In a video released last August, an Islamic State jihadi declared: “Listen, Putin, we will come to Russia and will kill you at your homes … Oh Brothers, carry out jihad and kill and fight them.” The video also showed Islamic State jihadis, according to a subtitle, “breaking into a barrack of the Rejectionist military on the international road south Akashat [Anbar province, Iraq].”

“Rejectionists” are Shi’ites, who in the view of Sunnis are guilty of rejecting the legitimate authority of the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman. The Russians in Syria are backing the Alawite regime of Bashar Assad, which is aligned with the Shi’ites of Iran (and the Alawite religion is itself an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam), and fighting the Islamic State. Hence the rage of the Islamic State against Russia – although Western analysts would do well to avoid the pitfall of thinking that if Russia were not involved in Syria, the Islamic State would not have struck in St. Petersburg.

In reality, the Islamic State’s enmity toward Russia goes much deeper than anger at its presence in Syria. On July 1, 2014, just after the Islamic State had declared itself the new caliphate – that is, the sole legitimate government for all Muslims anywhere on earth – its new caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, issued a declaration entitled, “A Message to the Mujahedin and the Muslim Ummah in the Month of Ramadan.” In it, he said:
O ummah of Islam, indeed the world today has been divided into two camps and two trenches, with no third camp present: The camp of Islam and faith, and the camp of kufr (disbelief) and hypocrisy – the camp of the Muslims and the mujahidin everywhere, and the camp of the jews, the crusaders, their allies, and with them the rest of the nations and religions of kufr, all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the jews.” – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s caliph Ibrahim, in his message upon being named caliph, “A Message to the Mujahedin and the Muslim Ummah in the Month of Ramadan,” July 1, 2014 (capitalization as in the original).

The self-styled caliph couldn’t have been clearer: as far as he is concerned, the greatest enemies of the Muslims are the Jews, as he knows from his Qur’an (5:82). This sinister enemy of the Muslims has mobilized the United States and Russia to lead “the camp of kufr (disbelief) and hypocrisy” against “the camp of Islam and faith.” As far as the Islamic State is concerned, this is an eschatological struggle, the apocalyptic showdown between good and evil.

And given the exultant brutality of the Islamic State, they may very well have a point. But Western analysts would do well to realize that no adjustment of foreign (or domestic) policy is going to prevent attacks such as the one in St. Petersburg Monday, or the recent Islamic State jihad attack in London, or any of the others. Nor will the destruction of the Islamic State itself end this conflict: not only will its jihadis in Iraq and Syria be dispersed throughout the world to wage jihad in new countries, but other Muslims will also take up this cause, and enlist in the war between Islam and unbelief.

This is not just one way that the Islamic State and other like-minded Muslims look at the world. It is the only way. It is the prism through which they view all political events and issues. It is, likewise, the one aspect of this broad and spreading conflict that Western analysts continue to minimize, downplay, or ignore outright. And so as long as we fail to heed Sun Tzu’s adage that one must know one’s enemy in order to defeat him, we will continue to fail to defeat him.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/04/robert-spencer-in-frontpage-the-islamic-state-strikes-in-russia
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Moscow skyscraper will not collapse after huge fire

03.04.2012 11:21

A strong fire took place in the skyscraper of Moscow City Business Center yesterday, April 2nd. The fire occurred on top floors of the building that is said to be Europe's tallest when finished. No injuries were reported.

The fire started on the 56^th floor of the Federation Tower. The tower is a part of the business complex, which is still under construction on the banks of the Moskva River about 1.5 miles west of the Kremlin.

The fire, about 880 feet above street level, was believed to have started when plastic sheeting came in contact with a spotlight illuminating a work area, The Associated Press reports.

The fire started at about 8 p.m. on April 2^nd, and was visible in most of Moscow's western area.

The Federation Tower skyscraper is to reach 1,150 feet tall when completed. That would make it Europe's tallest building, exceeding the current record-holder, the 990-foot City of Capitals building in the same development as the Federation Tower, and another building in the complex, the Mercury City Tower, which is to reach 1,089 feet, The AP reports.

It was said on April 3^rd that the fire had not damaged the construction of the skyscraper, RIA Novosti reports. The square of the fire reached 300 m2 on Monday. The fire had been extinguished by 2:00 a.m. Tuesday.

There is no threat for the skyscraper to collapse, officials said. "The solid constructions of the Federation Tower were made from super-solid B-90 and B-100 concrete. They can endure fire for more than four hours. Therefore, the construction of the tower did not suffer from the fire," officials said.

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Russian winter goes extreme, claims lives

Russian winter goes extreme, claims lives

01.02.2012 15:46

Winter temperatures in Russia have gone extreme. The air in some regions of the republic of Yakutia (Siberia)[ΠΑΝΕΜΟΡΦΗ ΠΕΡΙΟΧΗ ΜΕ ΥΠΕΡΟΧΑ ΓΚΟΥΛΑΓΚ--ΔΙΑΡΚΕΙΑ ΖΩΗΣ ΚΡΑΤΟΥΜΕΝΟΥ: ΕΝΑ ΕΤΟΣ] has cooled down to -50 degrees Centigrade.[ΜΕΙΟΝ ΠΕΝΗΝΤΑ ΒΑΘΜΟΙ ΚΕΛΣΙΟΥ!!!] Anomalous cold of -40 degrees is expected in the Perm region of Russia, Vesti.Ru reports.

In the European part of Russia, the current temperatures are ten degrees below the norm. On Wednesday morning, the temperature in the Moscow region dropped to 26 and even 30 degrees below zero Centigrade.!!!!

Cold weather is expected to become even colder this week in Moscow and the region, RIA Novosti reports. Winter cold has already claimed several human lives. One person died of frostbite yesterday in Moscow. Ten others asked for medical help and were hospitalized.

Ukraine suffers from extreme cold as well. According to Ukrainian news agencies, the cold has killed 30 people during the last three days. More than 600 people asked for medical help, 544 of them were hospitalized.

Russia's Chief Sanitary Doctor Gennady Onishchenko believes that there is a positive side to such severe winter cold. Low temperatures prevent the epidemic of flu, the official said.

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Russia posts Katyn massacre documents on Internet

Russia posts Katyn massacre documents on Internet

Published April 28, 2010

 | Associated Press

• http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/28/russia-posts-katyn-documents-internet/ 

AP

In this May 1943 file photo, two German officers, left, and a group of Allied officers who were prisoners of war look over a partly-emptied mass grave in the Katyn Forest in Russia. Russia's state archives posted documents Wednesday April 28, 2010 for the first time on the Internet about the Soviet Union's World War II massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens.

MOSCOW

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's state archives posted documents on the Internet for the first time Wednesday about the Soviet Union's World War II massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers and other prominent citizens.

The step was a gesture to Poland in a case that looms large in Polish history and has soured relations between the two countries for decades.

President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the documents posted on the archives' Russian-language website, reflecting a new willingness in Russia to accept responsibility for the killings at Katyn and elsewhere in 1940.

Relations between Russia and Poland have warmed following the tragic April 10 plane crash that killed Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 94 others on a flight to visit the Katyn forest in western Russia for a memorial ceremony on the 70th anniversary of the massacre.

But while Medvedev's order was clearly intended as a positive gesture, the documents posted Wednesday were made public long ago and already have been published in Poland and Russia. Many more documents remain classified, despite dogged Polish appeals for the archives to be opened.

"There is some material that has not yet been handed over to our Polish partners. I have given the order to make that happen," he told journalists in Copenhagen.Medvedev later promised that more documents would be released.

The Katyn documents would help people learn from history, he said.

"Let everyone know what was done, who made the decisions, who ordered the elimination of the Polish officers," he said. "Everything is written there. With all the signatures."

In Warsaw, Poland Prime Minister Donald Tusk was cautiously optimistic, saying he welcomed the sentiment but would await Russia's next step.

Kaczynski's death could be a catalyst for renewed co-operation between Warsaw and Moscow, and Tusk urged Russia not to let the opportunity slip.

"I am curious to see if Russia will use the chance that this tragedy has given," Tusk told a news conference. "Let's wait for facts."

The documents now on the Internet were made public in 1992 by Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first post-Soviet leader. They include a March 1940 letter by Lavrenty Beria, head of the secret police, recommending the execution of the Polish prisoners of war. The letter bears the signatures of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and three other members of the Politburo.

The documents also include the minutes of the Politburo meeting on March 5, 1940, at which Beria's proposal was approved, and a note from the head of the Soviet secret police in 1959 to Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev advising that the Katyn files be destroyed.

For 50 years, the Soviet Union blamed the massacres on the Nazi German forces who invaded in 1941. This remained the official line until Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev acknowledged Soviet responsibility in 1990, but Poles had always known the truth and the cover-up fed animosity toward Russia.

Documents that remain classified include materials from an investigation in the 1990s that are believed to include the names of those who carried out the executions. It was not clear whether Medvedev planned to release these materials.

Russia also has refused Polish requests to recognize the executed Poles as victims of political repression.

Polish historian Andrzej Kunert said although the documents posted Wednesday were known to historians, the decision to post them on the Internet was significant.

"We can surely call the decision a breakthrough, because it seems that for the first time a website that is generally accessible to everyone in the Russian Federation publishes three very important documents concerning the Katyn massacre," Kunert said on Polish TVN24. "It is certainly a very important step forward."

Many Russians still do not know the truth about Katyn, and the release of the documents may play a positive role in helping Russians come to terms with their own painful history under Stalin.

Within hours of the posting of the documents, nearly 700,000 Internet users tried to access the website, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing a spokesman for the state archives. The website responded slowly throughout the day due to the continued heavy traffic.

Kunert stressed that Poles were still waiting to see the results of the investigation by Russian prosecutors, and especially the classified reasons behind the discontinuation of the investigation in 2004.

Russia's Supreme Court took a small step in that direction last week by ordering the Moscow City Court to consider an appeal calling for the prosecutor's decision to drop the investigation to be declassified.

The Memorial rights organization, which brought the appeal, welcomed the posting of the documents on the government website, but said it was only a small step.

"The files of this criminal case must be disclosed and procedures observed, giving the Polish POWs executed in Katyn the status of victims of political repression," Alexander Guryanov of Memorial said, according to the Interfax news agency.

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On the Net: http://rusarchives.ru/publication/katyn/spisok.shtml