In an exclusive interview to RT POLITICS, Chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia Geydar Dzhemal discusses the possible roots and hidden agenda of the recent terrorist attacks in the Caucasus.

On September 9 a powerful car bomb attack hit the central market in the city of Vladikavkaz , the capital of the republic of North Ossetia. The blast killed 17 people, over 190 were wounded. Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev promised “the state will do everything to find the organizers of the terrorist act and punish them according to the law.”

RT: The blast in Vladikavkaz took place on the opening day of the Global Policy Forum in Yaroslavl, which the Russian president attended the next day. Is this a coincidence?

Geydar Dzhemal

- chairman of the Islamic Committee (Russia)

- an analyst, a political philosopher

- a founder of the Union of Russian Muslims

- advocates the idea of an alliance between the Christians and the Muslims

RT: The bombing happened on the last day of Ramadan. How likely is a Muslim to participate intentionally in such an attack, given the fact that this is the market where the Muslims of Ingushetia and Ossetia buy groceries for the holiday?

Geydar Dzhemal (RIA Novosti / Ruslan Krivobok)GD: The bomb could have been detonated remotely, and there is evidence pointing in this direction. This means that the driver may not have been aware of the plan. Remote detonation means this wasn’t a typical case of suicide bombing.

Had the attack been organized by the Ingush militants, they would have taken steps to ensure that the car doesn’t run into problems while on its way in Ossetia. But the car had Ingush license plates, leaving no doubt as to where the car was from. Usually, the Ingush prefer traveling to Ossetia in cars with Ossetian license plates.

RT: What makes this bombing different from other terrorist attacks in the Caucasus?

GD: There are two types of attacks. Some attacks target security forces, with which the militants are in conflict. Other attacks target civilians. There were all kinds of people at that market—Ingush, Chechens, Ossetians, an accidental mix, just like in the Moscow Metro bombings. Such blasts don’t help the militants achieve their tactical or operational objectives.

RT: A week before the attack, Major General Nikolay Simakov spoke about training camps in Georgia that recruit people with criminal records and send them to Russia. He said those camps have been very active lately. Who is running those camps and what is their goal?

GD: I think we are seeing preparations for another round of armed confrontation here. Saakashvili said recently he expects an attack from Russia. He is preparing public opinion for a big explosion in the South Caucasus that will involve Russia. There are two ways Russia can be involved: either as an ally of Armenia in case a military conflict breaks out in Karabakh, or through Georgia – the same way it happened in 2008. The goal is not to repeat the 2008 scenario, but to obtain a result that is more important to the United States – namely to pit Russia against Iran.

RT: Georgia had refrained from such activities for quite a long time. What made it reconsider?

GD:The Georgian leadership received a strict order directly from Washington. The US today is pushing through policies that may result in a great firestorm in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, i.e., regions adjacent to Russia.

The goals pursued by the bombing in Vladikavkaz:

- to escalate the conflict between the Ingush and Ossetians

- to create military and political chaos in the region

- to spark a regional conflict involving the Russian army

GD:President Obama is not so simple. He is adept in hypocrisy and deceit. Don’t be deceived by his gestures towards Georgia; his principle is that the language of diplomacy exists to disguise one’s thoughts. In reality, the United States considers Georgia as an instrument to start a fire in the South Caucasus. So, consciously or unconsciously, the Georgian leadership serves America’s political interests.

RT: Why does NATO open an office in Georgia if Georgia is not going to join the alliance any time soon?

GD:The NATO office will be used mostly against Iran. It is like a forward headquarters close to the frontline. You don’t need an office to use Georgia against Russia. The US wants to lure Russia into the trap of the South Caucasus and force it into a conflict with Iran. America has gone to great lengths to put Russia at odds with Iran.

RT: Is this why NATO Secretary General Rasmussen publicly suggested that Russia join the NATO missile shield in Europe against some hypothetical threats from Iran?

GD:This is in line with America’s key objective today, to pit Russia against Iran. The US leadership studied the situation and realized that public opinion and US allies don’t support their plans to attack Iran. America cannot afford to attack Iran first. After America’s failure in Iraq, where they failed to provide proof of weapons of mass destruction, nobody believes it.

Iran has far more supporters and sympathizers than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. After all, Hussein had a long-standing reputation of a villain.

As for Iran’s image, it's rather positive and, what’s important, Iran has a strong lobby among Europe’s aristocracy and clergy. So, it’s difficult to attack Iran head-on.

So, the United States is looking for a way to avoid being accused of aggression. If the US joins the war in its final stage, as was the case with World Wars I and II in Europe, it will appear not as an aggressor, but as an arbiter who steps in to settle chaos.

The US wants to unleash a conflict between two big countries like Russia and Iran. The consequences for the region will be devastating. It is the political collapse of the entire region and multiple conflicts throughout the Old World that the US is seeking.

RT: Why would the United States want such a catastrophe?

GD:This is a way to survive as the only center of a monopolar world. Hillary Clinton hasWays to destabilize the Caucasus in the interests of the US:  

- Start a war for Nagorny Karabakh and get Russia involved

- Start a war between Georgia and South Ossetia and get Russia involved

- Orchestrate a military confrontation between Iran and Russia

RT: How can Russia counter these plans?

GD:Russia needs a clear realization of what’s going on and a clear political will to strengthen its alliance with Iran and the Islamic world.

RT: In case Russia builds an alliance with the Islamic world, will that increase or decrease the number of terrorist attacks in Russia?

GD:Russia will have to accept a lot of bitter truths about the West’s strategy. If that really happens, it would be possible to outwit the forces who are stepping up terrorist activity in Russia. Russia should broaden its contacts with informal Islamic movements. That would allow to achieve fantastic success and to greatly reduce the risk of terrorist attacks.

What Russia really needs is to radically revise its relations with Islam and the Islamic factor, not only at the level of diplomatic contacts with national leaders, but also with the grass roots of Islam, which are still quite positive towards Russia. But that would require a fundamental revision of the philosophy and objectives of big politics.

RT: Why are the websites of the militants and various Islamic forums setting young Muslims in Russia against Iran, against political Islam and also against solidarity with Palestine?

Historically, Muslims in the former Soviet Union, just like the rest of the Soviet people, had no contact with their fellow-believers abroad. When the Iron Curtain fell in 1991, Saudi emissaries were the first to fill in the ideological vacuum. They acted primarily in the interests of the Saudi dynasty and its Western partners.

Historically Saudi Arabia is a country that is particularly active in inciting anti-Iranian sentiment.
People who look for information in the North Caucasus get just some shallow teachings of Saudi theologians and their associates among other Arabs. They don’t even suspect what ideological, scientific and theological life is thriving in the rest of the Islamic world. Those people are oblivious to serious Islamic philosophers of Britain, Malaysia, Turkey and certainly Iran, one of the most intellectually advanced Islamic countries.

RT: Some say that the goal of Islam is to build a universal Caliphate and that terror is a method used to build it.

GD:

Today, analysts have taken up this idea and inflated it, replacing actual goals with invented ones: mass terror everywhere and horrible slogans proclaimed by dummies.

But this logic does not agree with Muslim policies, tasks and goals. The very logic of mass terror as an instrument to build a Caliphate is not an Islamic logic.

RT: Let’s return to the Caucasus. Some people in the West believe that, having suppressed terrorist activities in Chechnya, Russia caused terrorism to spread throughout the Caucasus. What do you think?

GD:This is a very naïve assessment of Western analysts. They regard Kadyrov as another Ivan the Terrible who has forced destabilization out of Chechnya. Terrorist attacks in Chechnya continue. Just recently, there was a clash between militants and Kadyrov’s guards.

Kadyrov is not a self-sufficient figure, and Chechnya cannot be isolated from the rest of the Caucasus. Moreover, the North Caucasus cannot be isolated from the rest of Russia, both at the grass-roots level, because Caucasian communities exist throughout Russia, and at the top, because the federal authorities have close ties with local leaders.

Nadezhda Kevorkova, RT