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Terrorism prevention in Russia: one year after BeslanAndrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan / Agentura.Ru Studies and Research Centre ASRC. September 2005 / Report in PDF / Agentura.Ru Studies and Research Centre / ASRC / joints all kinds of research activity of Agentura.Ru project (www.agentura.ru). Centre experts staff consists of journalists, former security and intelligence agents, retired military officers, victims of espionage cases, lawyers, human rights activists etc. Centre realizes four monitoring projects:
Andrei Soldatov is a director of ASRC - staff@agentura.ru, Irina Borogan is a deputy director of ASRC - borogan@agentura.ru Contents:
1. IntroductionReforming special
services is an inevitable consequence of large scale terrorist incidents. For
instance, the terrorist attacks on September, 11th, 2001 in the These reforms have changed three key components of terrorism prevention and prosecution:
The assault
of insurgents in Ingushetia (June, 2004) and capture of hostages in Beslan (on
September, 1-3rd, 2004) have coincided with the period of reforms in the
Ministry of Internal Affairs and FSB which, in turn, passed within the limits
of administrative reform of the Government of the Russian Federation. Right
after Beslan President Vladimir Putin has actually ordered the reform of these
departments in light of the tragedy in In the spring of 2005 the structural reforms to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and FSB have been finished. The following changes have been made:
The speed in which these reforms have been implemented is impressive. However, the efficiency in which they are implemented remains a vital unknown question. 2. System up to BeslanAccording to the law "About fight against terrorism" (1998), the subjects who are directly responsible for fight against terrorism in Russia are the Federal Security Service (FSB), Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), Service of external intelligence (SVR), the Federal protection service (FSO) and the Ministry of Defense. Despute the
law, the FSB held the primary roll in counter-terrorism until 2003. So has
developed historically: the antiterrorist division of FSB is the successor of
KGB division of fight against terrorism (Upravlenie borbi s terrorismom - UBT).
This Division has continued to exist within the limits of FSK, and then FSB.
After capture of hostages in Budyonnovsk (June, 1995) new director of FSB
Michael Barsukov authorized the formation of the FSB’s Antiterrorism Center,
which UTB served as both a model and integral part. Besides the problem of
fight against terrorism has been put in the hands of the Management of
perspective programs of FSB created in 1996. In 1997 the Department on struggle
against terrorism has been generated on the basis of the Antiterrorist center.
In 1999 the Department has been incorporated with the Management of the
constitutional safety recreated in 1998 (so have named the division, engaged
political investigation). This federal organization has been adopted at the
local level across the In 2003 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs became the second major participant in the fight against domestic terrorism. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was given jurisdiction over two aspects of anti-terrorism:
As a result of the reorganizations, jurisdiction became unclear and overlapping but the coordinating center established to address these problems did not have the authority to clarify the situation and did not even establish a means for information sharing. . The law “About fight against terrorism" allowed for the creation of coordination committees among the Federal and regional establishments as well as between the Federal ministries. While the law allows for there creation it does not develop the authority. The Federal Commission (FATK) was created in 1998 (its head is a chairman of the government) and many regions also followed the model. . However many regions, critically Chechen, were not formed until much later. The ladder case not until July 2004. The legislation allows for the commission to meet at a minimum of every one to three months. This prevents the commission from functioning as a forum for daily information exchange, and undermines the timeliness of any information it does have. In the ***** The Kremlin
was regularly stating that there was a linkage between Chechen and
international Islamic terrorists. Despite the clear implications for
international cooperation these charges made, the intelligence cooperation was
non-existent. Any information exchange was supposed pass through The Common
Wealth of Independent States (CIS), but the system was dysfunctional. The Partially reforms have mentioned all components of this system: 3. Changes in system of coordination and information sharingInformation exchange inside the Russian security and law enforcement system The 2004 reforms to the security services resulted in the following structural changes: In the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The central administrative board on fight against organized crime (GUBOP) was transformed to the Department on fight against organized crime and terrorism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (DBOPiT). In structure of DBOPiT was created the management of the analysis and development of strategic decisions in the field of fight against terrorism. In operative submission DBOPiT are translated, except for the Center "T", the Center of special maintenance (the Center "C") and spetsnaz group "Rys". Functions on maintenance of activity of a staff on management of counterterrorist operations in territories of the North-Caucasian region were assigned to the Center of operative management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In Federal Security Service. The
Department for the Protection of the Constitutional System and the Fight
against Terrorism was renamed into Service. Alexander Bragin was appointed as
the new head of Service. His entire experience in combating terrorism is
limited to his brief stint in ***** This reforming of antiterrorist divisions was mostly cosmetic (in FSB all department were renamed into services, in the Ministry of Internal Affairs all main directorates - into departments). Substantive changes at a level of coordination have not followed. Meanwhile, each of the countries which have gone through terrorist attacks of such scale (the USA - 11 September 2001, Spain - 11 March 2004) have faced a problem of coordination of secret services and law enforcement agencies in question of gathering and the analysis of information about the preparation of attacks. Collected information should be not only accessible to all interested departments, but also to decision makers. As a result
in some countries new special services were formed which have included
independent structures (such as the Ministry of Homeland Security in Such
structure has not been created in Information exchange with special services of other countries As a result
of structural reform of FSB’s Service for the Protection of the Constitutional
System and the Fight against Terrorism was formed new division: Directorate on
fight against international terrorism (UBMT FSB). Probably, this Directorate
also should be responsible "for destruction of insurgents abroad"
that President Vladimir Putin has declared right after Beslan. Besides on
October, 12th, 2004 the former first deputy director of FSB Anatoly Safonov has
been appointed as the special envoy - the special representative of the
President of the On December, 6th, 2004 director of FSB Nikolay Patrushev and director of FBI Robert Muller have signed the memorandum of cooperation between the two services. After signing the document Patrushev has declared: "the memorandum which particularly stipulates our cooperation on a lot of directions is signed. First of all, this cooperation in struggle against the international terrorism, in struggle against the crimes connected with the weapon of mass destruction, and in other directions ". ***** Creation of
Directorate on fight against international terrorism of FSB and making the
deputy director of FSB as the special representative of the president on these
questions is a positive step, but is not a solution of the essential problem of
how to ménage the constant daily exchange of the operative information
with special services of other countries. The post of the special
representative is primarily a point for applying diplomatic pressure on
countries that are not cooperating with The UBMT FSB maintains its own contacts with foreign special services (such as FBI), but only in limited tactical areas and without information exchange. These
limited connections are in contrast to the rest of the developed world where
cooperation is far more extensive. In
the Europe in 2001 practice of the common European arrest warrant has been
introduced, and after acts of terrorism on March, 14th in Madrid the post of
the coordinator of EU on terrorism was formed. Within the limits of
Commonwealth axis of the Coordination and information exchange in the Now in this region two coordination centers operate:
The Regional operations staff (ROSH) has been created in January, 2001 by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation "for a direct management of special forces and means on detection and suppression of activity of the terrorist organizations and groups, their leaders and the persons participating in the organization and realization of acts of terrorism in territory of the North-Caucasian region". Originally ROSH management has been assigned to the deputy director of FSB - the head of antiterrorism department. However on July, 4th, 2003 president Putin has transferred responsibility on a management of the Regional operations staff to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However actually ROSH has remained under the control of FSB: to a post of ROSH head appointed exclusively generals of FSB, but before it translated them in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As example, admiral Jury Maltsev, up to that FSB supervised Operative management on coordination of carrying out of counterterrorist operations, has been translated in the Ministry of Internal Affairs on a post of the deputy minister of internal affairs and this very day is appointed by head ROSH. On
September, 12th, 2004, later ten days after events in Beslan, at ROSH there was
a new head, and again from FSB - Arcady Edelev, the FSB general, headed
Operatively-coordination division FSB in the In November,
2004 the presidential envoy to the North Caucasus Dmitry Kozak has declared at
session of the Commission on coordination of federal enforcement authorities on
the The Joint Group of troops on the North Caucasus (OGV) was
granted the authority to clear the From the beginning generals of Armed forces were appointed to a post of commander OGV: Victor Kazantsev, Vladimir Moltenskoj, Sergey Makarov, Valery Baranov are examples. On July,
27th, 2005 Evgeny Lazebin has been appointed as new chief of the Joint group of
troops on the North Caucasus (OGV). Evgeny Lazebin is the assistant to
commander-in-chief of Internal troupes (Vnutrennie Voiska - VV - the armed part
of Ministry of Internal Affairs). As result, the second structure on
coordination of actions of law enforcement agencies, secret services and army
in fight against terrorists on the ****** Transfer of
the responsibility for situation in Similar
problems plagued the Counterintelligence
service such as MI5 practically did not operate in region, considering this
territory as a colony which should be in MI6 jurisdiction. MI6 thought it was a
domestic problem and in the preview of MI5. Thus neither had any significant
presence until the end of the conflict. MI5 deployed a single communications
officer. The quantity of acts of terrorism in the Coordination in the case of a hostage crisis and subversive and terrorist attacks Prior to August, 2004 it was the responsibility of the regional/republic FSB to deal with a hostage situation or terrorist attack. The practice was very different:
In all cases the responsibility for the operations staff was held by officials at least deputy head of the power department, representing the federal authority. This chaotic
situation was changed after intrusion of
insurgents into Ingushetia (on 21-22 June 2004). On August, 16th, 2004
President Vladimir Putin created 12 new divisions at the federal level. Each is
headed by a colonel of internal troops ((W). These Groups include operations
management (GrOU), created in each region of Southern district(the Head of GrOU
has the rank of deputy head of the republican antiterrorist commission,
becoming the second ranking person after the governor in combating terrorism in
the region. In case of capture of hostages or intrusion of insurgents the
commander GrOU automatically becomes the head of the operations staff, and it has the right to
make of the decision without the coordination with This new
structure was in place in One of the
lessons of Beslan was the need for
better local control, which lead to the strengthening of the principle of GrOU
domination. There has been tremendous doctrinal development, - both in Despite the reforms and additional resources, the system is still weak. In February, 2005 Dmitry Kozak sharply criticised the GrOUs, as recent experience demonstrated the inability of local commanders to deal with these hostage takings. According to the newspaper "Kommersant", Kozak during a session with counterterrorism officials, wanted the regional FSB to be in control. According to one of participants of session, "nobody bears any responsibility for failures of operations neither in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, nor in Ministry of Defense". The decree designed to solve this situation remains unsigned. ****** The current
response structure in In the In the Using of GrOU as a center on decision-making during crises similar to Beslan will only lead to shifting responsibility from the federal to the local authorities, but with out corresponding shifts of resources it is an exercise in preemptive blame shifting if and when a failure occurs. 4. Changes in system of information sharing on preparing terrorist attacksOn June,
23rd, 2005 Jury Sapunov, the head of FSB department on fight against the
international terrorism, declared that in the first quarter 2005 FSB had
prevented more than 70 acts of terrorism and exposed cells operating in 50
Russian regions. However, due to the lack of concrete data about the prevented
acts of terrorism it is not possible to verify his information. Meanwhile, it’s
widely known that the structural changes required of the FSB for combating
terrorism have not been implemented. The only exception is the By summer of
2004 the
In addition to the above, it also supports division of Main intelligence service GSH VS of Russia and the Ministry of Internal Affairs Prior to the coordination authority, the various services cooperated on a fragmentary basis. The above system was altered post Beslan. On November, 25th, 2004 the member of the parliamentary commission on investigation of attack on school in Beslan, the deputy of the State Duma Valery Dyatlenko declared that at joint meeting of chiefs of regional divisions of FSB, MVD and Ministry of Defense "have decided to unite efforts of operative employees of power structures". "Inside of a counterterrorist grouping - has emphasized Dyatlenko, - the special prospecting service which unites efforts of all subjects of operatively-search activity - FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and military investigation - GRU". ***** Dyatlenko’s remarks miss the point. The difficulty is not in gathering information for a terrorism prosecution, but a question of coordination information to prevent terrorism in the first place. The new structure is responsible for tactical (army) intelligence not prosecutorial intelligence. This thesis is confirmed by the fact, that the commander of new intelligence body became one of deputy chief of the Joint group of troops (OGV), the officer of Internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. 5. Terrorism prosecution reform and reflections on subversive and terrorist attacksTactics of special operations groups By summer of
2004 FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and GRU made use of
extrajudicial killings in the The Main intelligence directorate (GRU) in the
beginning of the second Chechen campaign has generated with in one of spetsnaz
brigades two special groups, consisting of ethnic Chechens: "East"
and "West". Officially they named as battalions of special purpose of
42-d division of Ministry of Defense. The HQ of group "East"
(commanded by colonel Sulim Yamadaev, former chief of Chechen national guards)
is in Gudermes. HQ of group "West" (commanded by lieutenant colonel
Said-Magomed Kakiev, a Hero of Russia) is in Federal Security Service (FSB) takes to
approaches. First, are so-called SSG of ROSH or just SSG (summary special
groups). They consist of operatives of regional FSB divisions and fighters of
spetsnaz groups (OSN) of Internal troops (VV). There were 10 such groups
created in April, 2002 to carrying out of special actions in The FSB also
deploys to the Chechen conflict territorial divisions consisting of " Alpha" groups , so-called
"heavy faces”. During their month long deployments they are tasked
with liquidations, and report to FSB
divisional command in The Ministry of Internal Affairs also
deploys liquidation groups from other
central Russian regions to gain combat experience These so called mobile groups
operate in the The other
special “hit squad” is specialized operative groups (VSOG). The unit is
commanded from In May, 2004
the president of After the
June 2004 events in Ingushetia the strategy of using force was confirmed and
expanded. Widening the use of force was accepted, such that the Minister of
Internal Affairs of Russia Rashid Nurgaliev
expanded the area of operations of the Kadyrov regiment: "The regiment
of special purpose of the Ministry of Internal Affairs will actively counteract
extremists outside the Special divisions have also been employing new tactics, including the controversial “counter-capture” operations against the families of accused terrorists.. This term was publicly used for the first time by Public prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov, before the State Duma in October, 29th, 2004. He, in particular, has declared: "There should be a simplified procedure of legal proceedings, "counter-capture" of hostages, institutes of agents, protection of witnesses and the persons introduced in terrorist structures. As to counter capture: if people have gone - if it is possible to name them people - on such certificate, as terrorist detention of relatives and display to the same terrorists that can occur to these relatives, can rescue people. Therefore here it is not necessary to close eyes and to do such "diplomatic mines". Legislatures
have not approved the policy of counter-capture, but it is being used, and has
had some positive effects. The first capture has occurred in the spring of 2004
when more than 40 relatives of Chechen field commander Magomed Hambiev were
taken into custody. As a result Hambiev has surrendered to the federal
authorities. The second capture of relatives has occurred during the siege in
Beslan: on September, 3rd in area Nadterechnaya of the As
operations become more urban focused, the burden of response falls increasingly
on SOBR (special operations unit of
Ministry of Internal Affairs, they are Russian analog of SWAT in In FSB there
are two regional systems of special troops. The first is a legacy of the
"Alpha" and "Vympel" groups, now the Special purpose center
of FSB. During Soviet times regional divisions of "Alpha" were
created in In Southern
federal district there were only two divisions of the level of Special purpose
center of FSB: ***** Practice of
"counter captures" not only contradicts Russian legislation, but is
also useless both for the prevention of acts of terrorism, and in resolving
hostage’s crises. Counter-capture is an act of intimidation and not a counter
strategy. There is an implied threat to the people being held, and if it is not
carried out, then the tactics will be ineffective in the future. If harm is
inflicted on a largely “innocent” group of “hostages” taken by the government,
the political implications are disastrous. There is a mixed history of using
this tactics in different countries -
from With the changing operational environment ,shifting from a rural insurgency to an urban campaign, calls into question the value of the organizations and lessons of the Northern Caucasus region. The current special units of the GRU, FSB, and others, are not counter-insurgent or even counter-terrorist units, but are the instrument of punishment and intimidation. All they
have achieved is to escalate the extreme violence ,and shift it from the region
to the wider Despite the negative assessment above, it is necessary to recognize some of the unique positive result of reform and the creation of regional division of the Special purpose center of FSB in the Southern federal district. Expansion of new divisions Internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (VV). The
expansion of the Internal Ministry troops began during the autumn of 2004. It was decided to expand 49-th separate
brigade would be expanded and deployed in three separate areas: In June, 2005 commander-in-chief of Internal troops general-colonel Nikolay Rogozhkin said that the transfer of operational command to Internal Ministry troops will not be completed until 2006. In addition, the current operational formations, brigade-battalion, will be replaced with divisional-regimental formations. Battalions,
which have 600 members, will be placed into 2,000 member regiments. Two new
regiments, located in The entire command structure of the Internal troops also has been changed. In June, 2005 President Vladimir Putin signed the decree that has created a more regionally oriented command structure. Depending on the mission requirements there will be three types of regional structures: district, regional command and regional management. The First
commands will be based on existing regional formations in the The Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Defense will also increase its strength in the North-Caucasian region. The 42nd Division’s army special troops willl operate in Barmut, Vedeno, and Shatoi. In Botlih on
border with the The
accelerated transfer of divisions into Most critically, in 2005 the State Duma approved an amendment to the law "About defense", providing for a legal basis for the application of armed forces inside the country - against terrorists. Federal security service. FSB strength is also
increasing in the In July, 2004 the Border service moved from a linear principle of state border protection to more regional orientation. Instead of ten regional border divisions covering the entire Federation, there are now only seven, organized among the federal districts. August-2004
reform created a Regional Border Division for the Southern federal district
(RPU FSB of the There are 5
geographic divisions in this region (in the structure of RPU of FSB on JUFO):
the North-Caucasian border division (SKPU) with a HQ in Stavropol, the
Chernomorsko-Azovskoye border division of a coast guard (CHAPUBO) with a HQ in
Krasnodar, the Caspian border division (KPU) with a HQ in Makhachkala, border
division on the Volgograd area with a HQ in Volgograd, border division on the
Rostov area with a HQ in Rostov-on-Don. Border division on the Chechen republic
was created on the basis of Argun border command. This will be the most active
region in In December, 2004 President Putin matched the troop commitments with the necessary infrastructure, signing the decree "About measures on maintenance of border safety in the North Caucasian region". The document provides construction of more than 70 bordered facilities, several HQ facilities, and the center of a professional training, and some roads and development of an infrastructure on places of residing of frontier guards. JUFO accepted all of the decrees in June of 2005. Then In
July, 2005, after a visit to Dagestan, Vladimir Putin instructed the Minister
of Economic Development and Trade German Gref, to find money for strengthening
of the ***** Commenting on all recent changes, commander-in-chief of Internal troop’s general-colonel Nikolay Rogozhkin declared that former organizational-regular changes have forced to refuse heavy combat material that not always was justified. Thus, use of tanks at storm of buildings in city conditions as it occurred in the winter 2004-2005, probably, will be continued. The Russians
seem to be following the Spanish model, where the Spanish Parliament passed
legislation increasing the Army operational scope, four days after the March 12th
Madrid bombings. But unlike All of the aforementioned changes seem to leave the FSB republican (regional) divisions in Southern federal district on periphery of federal attention. While the focus has been on the Internal Affairs and Military the FSB has produced unique divisions in power structures which in a condition to conduct secret-service work in region. Changes in the punishment system There are not significant changes in this area during the year after Beslan tragedy. Last changes have been made in June 2004, then Federation Council approved amendments to the Criminal code that established the maximum sentence for terrorism crimes would be life imprisonment. There was only one unsuccessful attempt to change the punishment system after Beslan: In January 2005 the State Duma has rejected amendments providing punishments of terrorists relatives. 6. ConclusionThe Beslan hostage crisis has had only a limited impact on the security services reform. The chaos of the response can be partially explained by the confusion over who had authority during the on going reform process. The tragedy of the September 1-3rd siege only served to highlight the soundness of the principles being incorporated in the on going reforms. Some of those are highlighted below.
While recognizing the critical importance in coordinating information, the joint coordination center is still not created. The problem of coordination and an exchange of the information between FSB, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, SVR, FSO and MO is not solved, the sharing of information with and between international partners is even worse. Despite the role, the Special Envoy still has not exercised any authority in these matters. The strategic issues remain open, the daily sharing of tactical information is no better. Despite all the changes the new bodies and authorities missions remain vaguely conceived and poorly defined. In the
According
open sources, the tactical intelligence picture has improved with the
establishment of OGV. However there is still no strategic collection and
analysis center focusing on the
After Beslan
the practice of "counter-captures" had been expanded and legalized.
This act of intimidation is largely ineffective and contradicts fundamental
Russian legislation. The recruitment and
deployment of some of these units actually exacerbates the crisis and can widen
the potential of interethnic conflict. The lack of control of these unites also
raises worrying questions. The key concern is the lessons being learned in the
region are being misapplied. Indiscriminant application of force rarely works
in a rural environment but is especially counter-productive in an urban
setting. As terrorism moves to a more urban domain a new set of skills and
tactics will have to be developed. Despite the
largely negative lessons of the past, The very transfer of capabilities from FSB to Internal Affairs is significant. Traditionally the three main activities of state security agencies were: revealing, prevention, and suppression of crime. Counter-terrorism, and most particularly counter-insurgency, requires a different set of skills. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has more capabilities, but it needs to utilize the resources of the FSB to maximize its advantages. The most
clearing gap in capabilities involves countering terrorist financing. Despite the actions taken by the **** While the system for fighting terrorism has evolved in positive directions in 2004-2005 the system to prevent terrorism remains non-existent. AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank ASRC experts - both
Russian and foreign, for their help. The authors would also like to gratefully
acknowledge the kind help of Dr John Harrison, Research Fellow and Manager of
Terrorism Research in References:
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