In a month it will end up in Moscow City Court

Kommersant found out that the FSB has completed its investigation into the celebrated criminal case — the attempt during the summer of 2011 to derail the Peregrine Falcon passenger express on its route from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The four young men accused of the crime immediately plead guilty, and for the duration of the investigation have been trying to reach some kind of a pre-trial deal. However, a counter-proposal by the investigators — to mitigate their punishment if they confess to being ideological militants and members of the banned Caucasus Emirate terrorist organization — does not suit them.

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Who wears the suicide bomber’s belt

Altruists in suicide bomber belts. Poor, disadvantaged, and uneducated — this is the traditional cliché associated with terrorists and suicide bombers. The face of global terrorism, as studies show, has changed dramatically. The distinctive features of 21st century terrorism are explained to The New Times.

“If they weren’t at war with us, I’d be on their side!”
_{(Actor Andrei Chadov in the movie ‘Alive’. Chadov is- a former Spetsnaz commando who lost a leg and most of his friends in Chechnya.)}

The author, Marc Sageman, is a CIA adviser in Pakistan and worked as an instructor in special tactical training in the northern Afghanistan camp run by USSR ally General Dostum*.  During the early 1980s, they were on opposing sides. Sageman is a professional psychiatrist, and served as a military physician onboard a U.S. aircraft carrier before being recruited by the CIA. In his biography it states that he is “a specialist in specific activities.” Today, Dr. Sageman is considered the foremost authority on the psychology of modern terror, and has access to all captured Mujahideen records. He wrote the book ‘The Network Structure of Terrorism’, which he presented in Russia, where he first arrived in the middle of the ‘zeros’ (mid-2000s). The author of this article spoke with Dr. Sageman for over than two hours, wishing to understand the terrible force that finds, trains, and motivates people who later strap on a suicide belt or sit at the controls of a Boeing to turn it into a flying bomb. The following are the main points of the discussion.

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_{* Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum during the Afghan war was commander of the Afghan National Army 53rd division, at the time supporting the pro-Soviet government of Najibullah. During the Afghan civil war, he entered into alliances with various warring factions, and in 2004 he ran for president, coming in fourth with 10 percent of the vote. In 2005 he was appointed chief of staff of the Afghan military high command.}

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Strasbourg’s decision in the ‘Nord-Ost’ terrorism case has entered into force

The “Nor’easters” — more than 60 of them — filed complaints in April and July of 2003. The applicants demanded that the government of the Russian Federation be recognized as having violated Articles 2 and 3 of European Convention (the right to life and prohibition of torture). They also wanted Russia to prosecute the organizers of the (hostage rescue) operation. Eight years later, in December of 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled: Russia had violated the right to life, and each of the applicants was awarded compensation of from 8 to 60 thousand euros. As for the other points, the court found no need to satisfy these. This decision was found unacceptable to both the Russian government and the victims’ lawyers. The former insist that they did not violate any of the hostages’ right to life, and were acting “in a state of urgent necessity”. They stated that “a loss of life was inevitable” and that the authorities’ actions “minimized casualties”. The hostages insist — among other things — that the ECHR determine whether or not the gas was harmless. This June, the ECHR’s decision entered in force.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the decree on procedures for establishing terrorist threat levels. The text of the document can be found on the official website of the President.

According to the document, an elevated (blue) level of terrorist threat is declared when there is confirmation of information on the possibility of a terrorist attack. A high (yellow) level is introduced in the presence of valid data concerning a real possibility of a terrorist attack, and the critical (red) level is when there is information about a terrorist act or direct threat of its commission.

Under the decree, the decision to impose a terrorist threat level must immediately be published in the media. The level shall be cleared only after the terrorist threat is over.

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