Are all follows at the kennan institu institute, so we wanted to get them all together. Alan cull son, the moscow correspondent for the wall street journal for a decade and a half, sergei, who has a show and elena, a special investigative correspondent. So its a really, really good group of journalists. I encourage you to join us on thursday mortganing. Let me start todays event, russias war against terror. Elena had just published this book. The evolution of terrorism in russias north caucuses and we have copies for sale up front and she will inscribe it for you and write a comprehensive plan for dealing with terrorism on the front cover. Im kidding. Thats chapt ir 3. So, elena is associate professor of International Security studies in the college of International Security affairs at the National Defense university. Thats a Government SecurityOriented University in case that didnt make it clear. Her publications including this latest book have appeared foreign wide including in journals such as terrorism and political violence, critical studies on terrorism. Studies on conflict and terrorism and journal of balkan and near eastern studies. From Kent State University where she wrote her dissertation on russias war on terror. She is experience working in russia, including with deputies on state projects. The floor is yours. Thank you so much. Thank you very much to you for being here and i would like to extend my thank you to the Wilson Center for having me here. Before i proceed, i would like to say here i present my own views. They do not represent the views of the United States government, Department Department of defense or the National Defense university. So, in the speech today, i will talk a little bit about russia easter ris threat and of course, many of you today are concerned about what putin is doing in syria, how that is related to counterterrorism. His declarations that he is going to fight isis as a terrorist threat, so, well get to that towards the end of the presentation, but what i wanted to cover really is the evolution of the terrorist threat in russia. Russias experiences with terrorism. And russias experiences with counterterrorism. Ill hopefully speak for about 20, 30 minutes and then well turn it over to your questions and im looking forward to the discussion. Thank you. In russia, most people would probably have had some kind of experiences with terrorism. And me included. Thats why i am studying this topic and am so interested in the topic. I still remember when in 1995, everyone was glued to the tvs because of the hostage crisis. In 2002, my aunt bought a ticket to go to theatre. At the last minute, she decided not to go, but of course, the theatre became very wellknown to the rest of the world as the scene of the hostage crisis at the brov kai. Later on, i was working in moscow and in 2003, an explosion happened in front of just two blocks down the road from where i worked. And of course, every day just taken the metro, you have the threat of being blown up by black widows or other suicide terrorists that happened very often in 2003 and 2004. So, based on those experiences, or near experiences with terrorism, i started looking into the threat and have studied terrorism and counterterrorism in russia for over ten years now. Terrorism in russia has deep roots and not many people realize russia confronted terrorism way before the world became concern wd the threat after september 11th. Back in 91 when chechnya declared independence from the soviet ewyuunion, the threat of terrorism became apparent when separatists starting using terrorism as a tactic against the Russian Forces to secure independence of chechnya. At the time, the general, who was a secular general, but at the same time, he was using islam as a force that consolidated the chechnyan forces in the fight against russia. It was in the early 90s he actually declared jihad against russia and used the tactic of terrorism to confront the more sue perrier forces of the russian federation. Terrorism became a constant threat in russia and of course, the first two major attacks happened in 95 and 96. Was the hostage crisis and later on in the more maybe notorious case of terrorism of the first chechnyan war was bahsooifs raid logical terrorist attack. While in russia, it wasnt perceived quite seriously, but in 95 in november, bahsooif, a leader of chechnyan separatists, secured the position of a raid logical substances and hid them in a park in moscow, so, this was one of the experiments with terrorism he undertook and much later, he was also the mastermind behind transformations of the threat that went from hostage attacks to the employment of the black widows. To the employment of converted russian salafi adherence et cetera and i will briefly talk about those as well. The chechnyan campaign lasted the first chechnyan campaign lasted from 94 to 96 and was over the de facto independence and victory for the chechnyan side. In 99, a wave of apartment bombings took place in russia and moscow and after that wave of apartment bombings, the second counterterrorist operation started and this time, it was a counterterrorist operation aimed against terrorists. Supposedly with alleged ties with Osama Bin Laden and alqaeda. Thank you. In the second chechnyan conflict, there still were major hostage crisis. In 2002, it was the crisis in moscow and 2004, the crisis in a secondary school in north however, in the second campaign, terrorism started shifting. And here, you see for example, the implementation of a tactic of suicide terrorism. The first suicide terrorist attack happened in november of 2000, june 2000, where habariva blew herself up and others up with her. This was a foreign tactic for the north caucuses. Supposedly or allegedly, this tactic was implemented under the influence of foreign mujahadin, who came and joined the chechnyan and then the north caucus from afghanistan and other post afghan conflicts. Bosnia, algeria and other places. Another tactic that transformed chechnyan terrorism and by that, i sometimes refer to it as terrorism, but after 99, it started spreading to the north caucuses. Often after 99, we are speaking about the insurgency in the north caucuses and terrorism implemented by the forces throughout the north caucuses and in moscow and the rest of russia as well, so, another tactic that the chechnyan mujahadin started implementing was the employment of women in conflict. Now, for those of you familiar with jihad and International Terrorist forces, this is a new tactic and the chechnyan fighters really pioneered this tactic, employing women in conflict. The traditional role in islamists jihad for women is this secondary role of supporting fighters and providing for the fighters. In chech any area, women became the fighters and later on groups such as hamas and alqaeda started implementing this tactic as well. Another shift in the terrorist threat in russia was the conversion of solafi adherence to radicalism in terrorist attacks. Especially in moscow, it would be very hard due to the increased surveillance of Security Services. It would be very hard to carry out a lone terrorist attack if you are from the north caucuses because because of your ethnic pro file, so the tactic the terrorist forces implemented was using the slavs, who looked like anyone passing by in moscow, and using them to carry out suicide attacks. So, stins mid 2000s, the vast majority of suicide attacks carried out on the territory of russia has been perform by the slavic converts or as its called in russia, wahadism. These trends have been concurrent with the trend of islamization and radicalization in the north caucuses. They became the centers in the north caucuses that first supported this chechnyan insurgency, then toward the establishment of the Islamic State in the north caucuses. Today, unfortunately, we speak about the entire region of the north as engulfed in insurgency, so the six republics and the votering areas are under the influence of the insurgency and there are cells where theyre active or not in the caucuses that participate in terrorist attacks and carry out terrorist attacks. At the time when terrorism first struck russia, russia was not prepared to face the threat. There was no counterterrorist legislation, institutions to fight the threat. At the same time, it was not perceived as a terrorist threat. In the 90s, during the first chechnyan war, the threat was perceived as one of the consequences of the first chechnyan war. The consequences changed after the first chechnyan war. The russian government ledgelated the law and it became the legal instrument for the Russian Forces to carry out counterterrorist operations since 99 and so on. The counterterrorist operations in chechnya and the neighbors republics were under this legislation. More innovations took place as the war progressed and as the terrorist operations progressed. Since 99, russia no longer implemented the solution that it used in the first chechnyan conflict, so there were no massive bombardments or the ground operations as they used to be in the first chechnyan conflict. Since 99, the Russian Administration has used more tactical targeting of the terrorist groups in the north caucuses instead of conscripts, it has used contractors and targeted operations have become the sort of the symbol of counterterrorist operations. So, if you compare counterterrorist operation frs the second conflict to the first, you see theres a lot of improvement. Hatub and have been eliminated. The names most associated with terrorism in russia. Travel between russia and the neighboring republics, georgia, azerbaijan and other countries have been secured, so its much more difficult today to travel and use those roots that the insurgents used before to channel terrorist elements or insurgent elements and to channel all the foreign aid. Many Training Camps in chechnya and the north caucuses have been eliminated. You might know that the chechnya forces and north have established a lot of Training Camps in the north caucuses. Those have been used to prepare suicide terrorists, et cetera, so, you can see the russian counterterrorist attempts have been successful at certain points and as pechts. At the same time, theres a big question of what is happening now where the north caucus is now and how it is relevant so syria. Despite the fact that the Russian Forces have been trying to stamp out chechnyan accept a separatists and projects establishing a muslim state in the north caucuses, the fight has been going on for close to 20 years now. You see the threat has not been eliminated. There still are insurgent f factions in the north. You might have heard the big scare before the limb p picks. That was when the terrorist, the insurgency declared they would do anything to undermine the olympics and prevent them from happening. You also might have seen that the chechnyan conflict has had the impact on other places. For instance, in ukraine, when the ukraine conflict started in 2014, you saw chechnyan forces fighting on both side of the ukrainian conflict. There were the chechnyan forces of who supported the pro russian separatists. On the other side, there were chechnyan forces who were fighting against the russians and there are several of the counterterrorist groups there that have declared they have been fighting against russia because thats what they have been doing for a long time. So, you might have seen the presence of batallion, those are the chechnyan contingents fighting on the pro on the antiseparatist side in ukraine. And of course, the big question today is what are some of the north caucus individuals doing in syria . What is the threat for russia and why is russia getting involved in syria . Some are concerned, well, is russia supporting assad in syria . Is russia trying prove to the rest of the world that it is a big power that the Foreign Countries still have to consider while implementing a different decisions. Well, russia has real concerns about terrorism and isis coming back to russia. A number of terrorists from the north caucuses have joined the Syrian Civil War since its start in 2011. Some of these groups have declared that they are loyal to the caucuses emirate that was established in 2007 and the leadership of doku omar. However, some of these factions have joined isis and pledged ed allegiance to isis and are fight ng the name of isis. Some of those mujahadin have declared they will be coming back to russia, striking against russia and some have already started coming back to russia and this is a growing concern for the russian government and Security Services. So, on the one hand, you see that there are realistic threats for russia in terms of isis and in terms of the participants from the north caucuses fighting for isis and in terms of their coming back from radicalized than before and striking against russia later on. At the same time, you also see that there has been an interesting trend happen ng the north caucuses in terms of counterterrorism. The more resent operations in the north caucuses have adhered to the strategy of decapitation. What i mean by this is that the Security Services of russia have been targeting insurgent factions loyal to the caucuses. Doka omar was eliminated in 2014. His followers who were also loyal to the caucuses emirate project, namely kabirkov and were also eliminated in april and august 2015. Doka omar was probably the last insurgent leader who had some level of control over the caucuses emirate. Since then, the organization has been undergoing a lot of shifts and transitions. Currently, we are no longer speaking of a unified body or a high ark cal body. Instead, its a lot of different factions and theres a lot of end fighting among those factions. In 2010, there was a fitna or a split between the different groups when mohammed or the leader of the Foreign Forces in the north caucuses, attempted to take over the caucuses emirate and attempted to take over control of the caucuses emirate. Omar did succeed in taking control back then an retaining that control. However, what has been happening since his demise in 2014, theres a lot of these factions and some of these factions pledged allegiance to isis. As early as november of 2014, several factions have declared that theyre no longer loyal to the caucuses emirate project, but pledged allegiance to isis. In june of this wreer, very recently, there was another announcement of the majority of the factions of the caucuses emirates saying we are pledging allegiance to isis. The speaker did ke claire at this point, we are establishing group in the kacaucuses, the noh caucuses and this will be our group called so, isis has already declared that it has its branch in the caucuses emirate, so, on the one hand, russia has these real threats coming from the north caucuses and from the forces that join isis and syria. On the other hand, russias own counterterrorism in the north caucuses has seemingly been pushing these factions towards syria and we see this tendency of displacing the conflict and the leaders who retained that loyalty to the caucuses project. The next step in russia and syria is going to be at the same time, isis remains big threat. It is impossible to predict whether putin will decide to send Ground Forces to syria, however, what has happened is there has been afghanistan. There has been chechnya one and two. And despite massive bombardments, despite the targeted operations, despite changes in counterterrorism, chechnya is still going on and the north caucuses insurgency is still ongoing. So, putin has not secured victory over the chechnyan and the north caucuses Insurgent Forces back home. So, what is the probability of him securing victory over isis by air strikes against isis groups or isis forces in syria . So, there is the big question of whether it is even possible. The question whether he is going to proceed with further counterterrorist operations by sending Ground Troops, that will be risky for russia and the russian government. Again, it reeks of afghanistan, of the repeat of unsuccessful operations back in the 90s back in chechnya and we see that has not produced success for mr. Putin. So, i will stop here with these initial comments and well turn it over to questions since i mentioned the major trends in the region and the major trends in terrorism and counterterrorism, but im sure you will have more concrete questions about some or other aspect of this fight. Thank you very much. I look around the room and see a lot of people who know more than i do about the middle east, so im going to leave syria and let you address that and your questions. Let me just ask you to clarify a couple of things about north caucuses. Number one, you said putin hasnt won a victory in the north caucuses. How do you define victory . I think a lot of russians would tell you he did. He ended the war. He can walk free on the streets of hes got a strong man, hes in control. How do you define victory . Great question. Would say there is certain success in counterterrorist operations and counterinsurgency operations in the north caucuses. In 20 o 03, putin switched to the declaration policy, which meant that instead of the targeted operations and instead of relying on counterterrorist operations, he started relying on the plan to pacify chechnya and at a certain level, that has worked because first and later his son, have pacified the chechnyan factions of the insurgency, so this would probably qualify as success since yes, grosny has been rebuilt and you can walk there, however, the situation still remains problematic. There are still terrorist attacks in chechnya. Probably not as much on the news as the rest of russia or as the attacks that are performed in moscow or in the naebing regions, but if you look at the list of attacks, if you look, youll see there are attacks still happening. On the other hand, one of the biggest problems with counterinsurgency and counterterrorism in the north caucuses has been the spread of the threat to the region. Today, the insurgency and threat is no longer confined to chechnya. Instead, it is all over