The 30th of March 2010 in Moscow has been declared the day of mourning. Thousands of Muscovites have come this day to stations of capital underground to light candles and lay on the flowers in memory of victims of terrorism. These morning hours' explosions have been made by women, the natives of the Northern Caucasus. As it clarified later, it was hexogen that was used as an explosive base for charges. Capacities of these charges were 4 and 2 kg. In both cases these charges have been filled by elements of chopped steel rods and bolts. Some days later there were several more acts of terrorism in Dagestan and Ingushetia.
It is probable, that splash in activity of terrorists underground was its answer to successful operations of the Russian special services on the Northern Caucasus in the end of 2009 as a result of which the ideologist of terrorism in the South of Russia Said Buryatsky and the leader of the Northern Caucasus wachhabits underground Anzor Astemirov were killed. In total during all operations in 2009 about 20 insurgents were killed. The terrorist underground which, despite of heavy tolls, continues to operate, has decided to show that war proceeds, and nobody in Russia can feel safe. At the same time Russian authorities are declaring that it isn't war with Islam, but only with its radical elements that represent the menace to public security. However here we must notice that not only wachhabits act on terrorist front. During the last years several terrorist acts were accomplished be Russian neonazists whose underground isn't studied yet, but also represent the danger for internal stability.
It is necessary to note that the problem of terrorism is actual not only for Russia. The terrorism in its various forms has turned us to one of the most stubborn problems with which the mankind enters the XXI century. The peak of terrorist activity for the period from the end of 1970s and till present times falls on 2005 when over 4924 acts of terrorism has occurred all over the world which led to death of more than eight thousand people (8161). For Russia a problem of terrorism and struggle against it has started to aggravate in 1990s. Unfortunately, next years, despite all efforts of the Russian authorities, it has not lost its importance and is not solved till now especially regarding to neo-Nazism and xenophobia.
The basic reason of terrorist danger in the Northern Caucasus lies in the geopolitical position of this region. Here have adjacent borders fore huge geopolitical plates: Russian, Turkish, Arabian and Iranian. If the countries of Southern Caucasus as a whole were already defined with its political orientation after their separation from USSR/Russia, Northern Caucasus became arena of struggle for separation of this region from Russia and creation here the Islamic state of radical orientation.
For achievement of this purpose various extremist groupings which have appeared are used and have got stronger owing to support from the foreign states and their special services interested in making the Russian Federation weaker. Officially supporting the observance of human rights and civil freedom in the Chechen Republic, in practice western states support separatists of the Northern Caucasus, contributing to distribution of extremism and terrorism.
Present political situation in the Northern Caucasus is influenced by its favorable geopolitical set-up. Dissolution of the Soviet Union was considered by some countries of the West as a historical chance to distribute its influence over this region and, hence, to separate it from Russia. For this purpose the simplest way was chosen - destabilization of situation in the Chechen and Dagestan Republics with further distribution of instability on all territory of the Northern Caucasus. As to movement of radicals they are also interested in expansion of their sphere of influence. The terrorist underground get financial help from outside for this.
With dissolution of the USSR foreign wachhabit preachers rushed to the region. They graduated Islamic institutes of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, spread radical literature, and created a number of educational institutions. In their works Islamic preachers set before themselves a goal to implement the tasks of distribution of ideas of separatism in the Northern Caucasus.
After 2000 insurgent movement on the Northern Caucasus has got its specific character: not only Chechens started to become the participants of militant groups. At present natives of other regions and extremists from abroad are being involved to these groups.
In the Chechen Republic members of militant groups don't have forces for open resistance to the federal authorities and thus they have staked on separate acts of terrorism. Under the guise of local residents they legalize in settlements, penetrate into power structures and law enforcement bodies. Each field commander has a network of informants. They observe the places of army dispositions, movements of military units, take photos and videos of important objects. They create points of observation near military bases, open shops to collect valuable information from the soldiers to transfer it to their commanders.
The Republic of Ingushetia, which has close relations with the Chechen Republic and where many Chechens live, is one of such «hot points». Last years there was a significant growth of acts of terrorism there that especially contrasts with the Chechen Republic where peaceful life has just begun. To a certain extent it can be explained by the fact that some money goes to Ingushetia and they are spent for the underground formations operating in the Chechen Republic. Ingushetia has become a convenient place for training and preparation of terrorist operations in the Northern Caucasus and beyond its borders.
Wachhabism also got distribution in Dagestan. The enclave of wachhabism and anti-Russian separatism was formed in the zone of Kadar (settlements Karamahi, Chabanmahi and Wanochimachi) in 1990s. Now its influence has decreased, but violence was not stopped. Each second act of terrorism is carried out by placing and activating explosives, in other cases terrorists use cars filled with explosive. These attacks are accompanied by application of the automatic weapon and grenade. In most cases members of wachhabit's jaamats "Djennet" and "Shariyat" take part in these acts.
In the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic at the beginning of 1990s under the direction of the preachers educated in Egypt a religious movement "Moslems Brothers was formed. This is a community of young Moslems-radicals on the basis of which "the Islamic cultural center" in Nalchik and hierarchical structure of Islamic communities in a number of settlements were formed. Young radicals have got into confrontation with the representatives of traditional Islam of the Northern Caucasus. Now in Kabardino-Balkaria there are four mosques for one secondary school, in many of which attendants have got education in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Despite the measures undertaken by republic leadership and representatives of a traditional Islam they fail to eradicate the radicals who have gone underground. Among them it is possible to name wachhabit jaamat "Jarmuk" which is destabilizing political situation in Kabardino-Balkaria for a long time.
In the Northern Osetia there are also some problems connected with radicals. In the beginning of 1990s a community of young Moslem radicals was formed here which during some years became the branched network with an extremist ideological platform. Their activities concentrated on acts of terrorism and on delivery of recruits for militant groups of the Northern Caucasus. In Karachaevo-Cherkessia the Islamic fundamentalism penetrated into the certain part of youth who began to participate in various Islamic projects.
Thus, the greatest threat for stability in the region of the Northern Caucasus is represented by radicals and mercenaries who are supported by international jihadists and the religious organizations, including «World Islamic league». Their ideological platform is imbued by spirit of extremism and practical activities concentrate on acts of terrorism. Parallel to this there are some changes in tactics of the armed formations leaders. They pay basic attention to creation conspiracy wachhabit structures (jaamats) in all republics of the Northern Caucasus, activity of which is directed to creation of the united Muslim state in the territory of Muslim regions of Russia.
At the present stage of the development the structure of the international terrorism gets features of international jihads movements and represents the transitive form from the hierarchical militarized structure to more amorphous, decentralized, spreading network, cells of which take only ideology and general installations of its leaders, but are not connected with them directly. In such "spreading" network structure consolidation is carried out on the basis of general ideology of Islamic jihad. But while the majority of terrorist structures both at local and higher levels have mixed character, they represent hybrids of network and erarchical elements. It is characteristic that mutual evolution of these kinds of structures occurs not as much as a result of conscious organizational policy, but mostly during the natural adaptation to certain conditions of existence. However unlike some modern depersonalized functional-ideological networks (for example, Antiglobalists or Greenpeace) for jihads ideological directions to provide effective activity of separate cells are not enough. This problem of structure functioning is solved due to coordination of actions of all cells by combination of negotiations, mutual arrangements and the strategic goals formulated in the most general way. In conditions of informal, latent connections such strategic coordination by means of personal or indirect contacts and general instructions is effective when the ideology of movement itself comprises precise instructions to certain actions or allows to formulate strategic purposes in the way that they can be reached by different ways depending on certain conditions, but anyway they will be qualified as actions towards common goal.
In this sense the modern information-communication technologies, especially Internet, are playing indispensable role helping jihads to structure movement and to coordinate actions aimed to solve global problems.
Besides the general ideology, for effective coordination of separate cells actions in network terrorist underground there is a need for higher level of mutual social obligations and interpersonal trust which can be provided by neither network, nor mixed structures. Not only ideological affinity and feeling of belonging to one network as independent cells unites jihadists. Members of local structure, as a rule, are connected by close personal attitudes which have developed before their arrival to the organization. Community related attitudes, compatriotism, experience got during the study, work and social activities are the priorities. Here we can talk about group of close friends and association of adherents.
Thus, the main strategic resource for jihad are not arms, which is quite accessible and inexpensive, and not financial support as even large acts of terrorism do not demand great expenses, but ideology in combination with flexible structural organization. Such organization allows carrying out coordination not from the single center, but by statement of the general strategic goals, maintenance of rigid discipline and internal integration into social structures.
If to address Russian realities of struggle against terrorism it is necessary to emphasize that there is no public structures in the country which are adequate to existing threat. Such structures could be formed as groups of citizens providing transport safety, propagation of self-defense rules and behavior in crisis situations, rendering medical and psychological help to the victims.
However the terrorism in mass consciousness of the Russian citizens is not yet represented as paramount threat to public safety. As psychologists noticed, public opinion concerning terrorist danger has wavy dynamics. The first shock after the acts of terrorism passes after a while and only a feeling of fear before possible events remains. Terrorist danger becomes abstract and indistinct. Creates certain difficulties in developing mechanisms of civil counteraction to terror, moving ordinary citizens away from authorities. And still Russian society is realizing gradually that terrorist threat, most likely, remains in foreseeable future and new methods of counteraction are necessary.
Therefore the state policy in this area consists in creation of the branched network of counteraction to terrorism which has the task, on the one hand, to consolidate power and public structures, and on the other hand, to control information streams circulating inside the terrorist underground, including the activity of regional clans, financial groups of support of terrorism and communication at the international level.
Maintenance of all-round integration and increase of multilevel of interaction in the struggle against terrorism is now possible due to realization of new net centric principles which assume inclusion of three components to such network: sensors, information and power.
The sensor component of net centric system should include a lot of various transducers: metal detectors, gas analyzers (for revealing the presence of explosive atoms in the air), devises of video observation, etc.
As to information component it is a link between sensor and power components that should provide informational superiority over a terrorist underground. Informational superiority is not only gathering and transferring great volume of information for a power component (subdivisions of power structures and rescue services), but also estimating real situation for acceptance of adequate operational decisions.
In the other words, informational superiority is a "game of taking the over" the opponents in investigation, disclosing of his plans and decision-making to apply power structures in proper time.
Frequently in struggle against terrorism there is no opportunity not only to outstrip, but also to catch up with the opponent because of its conspiracy, mobility and freedom of choice of time and a place of terrorist act. Therefore it is necessary to use asymmetric ways of influence on a network infrastructure of terrorists, including informational and ideological pressure, entering distortions into liaison channels and their destruction.
In this connection effective functioning net centric antiterrorist system assumes:
- Creation of network structure adapted for net centric war against terrorism;
- Qualified personnel;
- Tools for gathering, transfer and display of situational information and corresponding software;
- System harmonization for creation of information interface between all its elements (sensors, information facilities and power subdivisions).
Last requirement means joining all elements of the considered system regarding their informational compatibility and maximum speed of information transfer through system elements. Fulfillment of this requirement assumes development of the unified scenarios of terrorist menaces that will provide increase of system efficiency in presence of limited volumes of operational information.
For maintenance of informational compatibility between the elements of net centric antiterrorist system there is a need to create the single database including classifiers and databases of investigation, monitoring of potentially vulnerable objects for terrorist attacks, structures of terrorist underground, legal structures with extremist orientation, their sponsors, antiterrorist power structures and services of rescue.
Net centric system should be characterized by:
- Stability to technical malfunctions and hostile external influences and as consequence - ability to restore;
- Efficiency of reaction to the change of situation;
- Ability to analyze the situation deeply and generate alternative variants to solve problems;
- Ability to apply innovations, i.e. competence to use new tools, instruments and ways of non-standard problem solving;
- Adaptability is possibility to get fast reaction on changing and development of external and internal environments and organizational structure according to changes of anti-terrorism struggle principles.
If the first three requirements are not something new and are always required from any organizational structure and technical system, the last two need special considerations owing to their novelty.
Innovability during the last years became the major principle of the development of all hi-tech systems. Especially it is typical for advanced countries. Fulfillment of this requirement assumes application of new tools and technologies in net centric system.
Adaptability assumes such organizational construction of system when introduction of new forms and ways of conducting war against terrorism would not break the management of power divisions in system. Besides, any element of system at a new place of disposition in the crisis area should connect quickly to general network for receiving information as quickly as possible without any negative consequences for system efficiency. Using the language of system engineering, the network should be capable to identify the new structural division deployed on a new place and to provide its effective functioning in network structure. Similarly the network should be able to work after moving any of its components to other region for solving the new problems.
One more important problem of creation the net centric anti-terror system is a human factor. It is expressed in formation of the high-grade fighter of net centric war who should be prepared not only technically and psychologically, but should also have modern munitions. Each participant of antiterrorist operation (either the fighter of special troops, fireman, rescuer or physician) should be the cell of network included to informational and command lines to provide the greatest efficiency not only of his own actions, but also actions of other participants of operation. It will allow providing the mutual coordination of actions with reasonable independence of separate participants in conditions of combat operation.
However for effective interaction of divisions and separate participants in operation the following items are required:
- Clear and logical statement of problems by operational command and providing identical understanding of all subordinates;
- Qualified execution of combat tasks;
- Guaranteed absence of distortions and losses of information, commands and reports in communication links;
- Coordination between subdivisions and separate participants during preparation and carrying out of antiterrorist operation.
The essential condition of successful fulfillment of requirements listed above is the increase of mentality of all elements of antiterrorist system. The creation of vocational training of personal is provided for this purpose. Net centric war against terrorism is a struggle of intelligences of humans and computers. Thus it is necessary to pay attention to weak spots in described net-centric system. Deactivation of some elements in the system could equalize chances of the contradictory parties. Such weak spots are the informational and command channels which are the "Achilles heel" of the modern systems which the opponent will try to destroy.
The history of struggle against terrorism shows that alongside with the presence of effectively operating state power structures, active informational and ideological counteraction to terrorist underground and state antiterrorist policy are necessary. Transition from actions of liquidation of consequences of terrorist acts to government politics in the sphere of maintenance of public safety, elimination of reasons of terrorism and minimization of terrorist threats is top-priority task.

* Vladimir Karyakin is independent expert in public security.