Beslan. Five years

Today there are exactly five terrorist attacks that happened in Beslan. Considering the events in Beslan in September 2004 from the heights of the past years, you can find two important aspects that largely predetermine the development of the situation in the Caucasus and the attitude to them among ordinary Russians and the authorities.

Firstly, despite all the tragedy and monstrousness of the attack in Beslan, he did not become for Russia those that would rally it into a single whole. Of course, the Russians experienced those events, but gradually we are trying to oust him from our memory, somehow forget. And today, for the majority of the population of Russian cities, the terrorist attacks in Beslan are something distant, something that happened on the periphery, in the wild Caucasus, something that does not care much about them. And this is another evidence that the Caucasus is still alien to the rest of Russia. If, God forbid, of course, this happened in a certain Russian city, then the pain and reaction of most Russians would be completely different. This is especially evident if we compare the reaction of Russians to the events in Beslan with the response of the Americans to the tragedy of September 11. The events of September 11 shocked the American nation to the core, they raped it. The Americans felt like a single nation, as I understand it, in the face of threats emanating from the outside. And, despite all the inadequacy of Bush’s reaction, who rushed into a crusade against world terrorism, still most Americans in assessing this tragedy for the fate of the American nation were united. This attack, these events rallied the Americans.

In Russia, after Beslan, it seems to me that such unity did not happen. Yes, they sympathized with the Ossetians, but at the same time, a Central Russian man, looking at the screen, sees that still the population of Beslan is unlike us, unlike the inhabitants of Moscow, unlike the inhabitants of St. Petersburg, Ryazan. He sees another world, other customs, another atmosphere. And this misunderstanding does not allow the ordinary Russian to feel this pain to the end and does not allow him to feel this pain as his own. Again, this indicates a huge alienation between the inhabitants of the Caucasus and the inhabitants of the rest of Russia. The average Russian perceives the Caucasus as something very far from Moscow, from Central Russia. He believes that since this is the Caucasus, even if these are Ossetians, even the Orthodox, then there could be something that could not have endured in other regions of the country. Thus, the attack in Beslan did not rally the nation, it did not become a scar on the heart of the nation, but remained some distant event. And the only legacy or echo, events in Beslan is a political reform that Vladimir Putin, related to the appointment of governors and strengthening the vertical of power.

However, this is not a reason for gloating, but a call to realize the degree of split and alienation that exists in Russian society, which must be overcome. This was not in the Soviet Union, it appeared precisely after the collapse of the Union and a series of national conflicts, after the default, after the war in the Caucasus.

Secondly, events in Beslan are not only the last loud terrorist attack of Chechen separatists, based on the capture of hostages, but, so to speak, the apogee of this method of combating the federal center. It was after the terrorist attack in Beslan, when the federal government represented by President Vladimir Putin showed that in no case did not intend to go to negotiations and concessions to the terrorists, Basayev, who relied precisely on the capture of the hostages, was forced to recognize the defeat of this tactics. Of course, the Chechen separatists suggested that the capture of children as hostages would force Moscow, the Kremlin, go to negotiations and make some concessions to the militants. However, the rigidity of Vladimir Putin left them no chance. Thus, events in Beslan became that turning point after which a whole era of sabotage terrorist resistance was replaced. It was after this terrorist attack that Shamil Basayev himself personally admitted that now the militants refuse to capture hostages and move to another tactic of sabotage and partisan struggle. It was after the Beslan’s hostage capture that there was not a single case of mass capture of hostages with Chechen militants or Arab mercenaries. And in fact, it was after Beslan that the tactics of the use of suicide bombers also came to naught, they simply refused it.

However, in the last year, the field commander of Doku Umarov returned to the tactics of the use of suicide bombers. He officially announced the revival of the Ryads As-Salikhin suicide battalion. And the last terrorist attacks in Grozny, the last terrorist attack in Nazran, when the Central Internal Affairs Directorate was undermined, the detergency of the President of Ingushetia show that the militants returned to the tactics of the use of suicide bombers. However, while they still refrain from taking hostage capture tactics. The reason for this is probably lurking in fear of losing supporters in the Muslim world that separatists are experiencing. After all, as you know, most Muslim believers do not approve of such tactics.

Honestly, I did not expect that there would be a return to the tactics of suicide bombers, because this tactic is still alien to the Kaucasian consciousness. If the Palestinians accept it, then the Caucasians are by no means unprincessed to go on the attack, knowing in advance that, although you will pick up several souls with you in another world, you yourself will definitely die. In the Caucasus, nevertheless, there was a different degree of removal, youth, when you go into battle and go out of there alive, for example, killing several enemies. However, the Palestinian script for self -separation replaced this Caucasian and youth. Of course, the Arabs who arrived in the Caucasus played a huge role in this and brought with them the methods of the Palestinian confrontation of Israel, the elements of Palestinian terrorist tactics. However, the globalization of the jihadist consciousness of the Caucasian Muslims also had influence.

Despite the return of the tactics of the Shahids, the return of tactics of mass capture of the hostages will not occur in the Caucasus. In most Caucasian republics, the majority of the population is already nominally, but considers himself Muslims. The capture of Muslims by Muslims is condemned by the majority of the population. And this means that in the case of using such tactics, militants will lose the support of the majority of the local population. But God forbid, if this can repeat in Russian expanses. I do not want to incur anything, but the fact that the militants perceive the Russian population, the Russian -speaking population in the Krasnodar Territory, in the Stavropol Territory as colonists who mention the invaders allegedly in the implementation of colonization policy. That is why it can be assumed that at some stage of a particularly fierce confrontation between the separatists and the federal center, one of the field commanders will decide on the new Beslan in order to deliver a painful and tangible blow. This cannot be excluded.