Moscow Struggling to Coordinate Counter-Terrorist Effort in North Caucasus

Rasul Kadiyev, a lawyer and political analyst [in photo], says the FSB, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, the Ministry of Defense, its various special groups and regional staffs, the various regional and republic governments, and the Russian Information Monitoring Agency are often working at cross purposes rather than a single team, a pattern that gives terrorists an opening they should not have.

By Paul Goble* for “Window on Eurasia”:

January 2 – Moscow is finding it increasingly difficult to coordinate the various agencies involved in its counter-terrorist effort in the North Caucasus, and its shortcomings in that regard are “being paid for by the blood” of local residents, according to Rasul Kadiyev, a lawyer and political analyst.

On the “Kavkazskaya politika” portal, Kadiyev says that the recent events in Derbent where forces which claimed to be part of ISIS attacked and killed some local people “confirm that mistakes in providing security” reflect the difficulties the Russian authorities are having in coordinating their counter-terrorist actions (kavpolit.com/articles/ukaz-22435/).

As a result, he says, the FSB, the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, the Ministry of Defense, its various special groups and regional staffs, the various regional and republic governments, and the Russian Information Monitoring Agency are often working at cross purposes rather than a single team, a pattern that gives terrorists an opening they should not have.

Although Kadiyev acknowledges that not everything in Russia occurs as specified in laws and directives, he suggests that the evolution of those official actions over the last decade and especially the last month shows that Moscow has still not figured out how to make things work and in fact is introducing ever greater complexities in this sector.

Vladimir Putin’s December 26 order “on measures to improve the state administration in the area of countering terrorism” (normacs.ru/Doclist/doc/11g7o.html) was issued in order to address some of these issues by “modernizing the National Anti-Terrorism Committee and “the resubordination of ‘the siloviki.’......................

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