Disrupting Escalation Of Terror In Russia To Prevent - Belfer Center ...

I. Executive Summary
The wave of deadly terrorist attacks in Russia in the summer and fall of 2004 prompted President
Vladimir Putin to declare that terrorism networks are waging “a total and full-scale war” against
his country. This paper analyzes the recent trends in this war and concludes that the logical
outcome of the ongoing escalation in number, scope, and cruelty of terrorist attacks in Russia
will be an act of catastrophic terrorism. 1 The horrendous hostage-taking drama in the North
Ossetian town of Beslan, in which more than 330 people—186 of them children—were killed,
demonstrates that ideologically driven extremists in the North Caucasus have already passed the
moral threshold between conventional acts of terror and catastrophic terrorism. 2
This report argues that networks of these extremists are trying to expand their
organizational and operational capabilities with the aim of inflicting greater damage on Russia,
either by conventional means or through the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or
nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) materials. It asserts that the Islamist wing of these
networks is more violent and better organized than the secular wing and is increasingly
motivated to resort to acts of catastrophic terrorism as it sees “conventional terror” failing to
either coerce Russia to withdraw from Chechnya or at least begin negotiations with the leaders of
these networks. Such attacks would be indiscriminate, but still “acceptable” for religion-driven
extremists, since they perceive Russian civilians to be “legitimate targets” due to their “tacit
approval” of “infidel” combatants in a holy war.
1 This article acknowledges existing differences in the expert and academic communities on what constitutes a
terrorist attack. For purposes of clarity and concision, this article relies on a definition of a terrorist attack commonly
found among mainstream researchers of this subject. We define a terrorist act as an act of political violence that
inflicts harm on non-combatants, but is designed to intimidate broader audiences, including state authorities, and is
an instrument of achieving certain political or other goals. This essay defines an act of catastrophic terrorism as a
terrorist attack involving the use of chemical, biological, or nuclear materials or weapons of mass destruction, or
conventional techniques to kill a significant number of people (1,000 or more).
2 This article will refer to those religiously motivated and separatist insurgents who have the motivation and
capability to stage acts of catastrophic terrorism as “ideologically driven extremists,” as distinct from “conventional
insurgents,” who would limit themselves to “conventional” guerilla warfare and terrorist attacks of limited scale.
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