– NEW OPORTUNITIES FOR JIHAD

A necessary condition to contain the Global Jihad and win the war on terror is a global cooperation between nations in many fields. Sharing information, tracking down suspect money transfers and providing each other with basis for special units operations are crucial to win the war on terror.

This international cooperation is already very complicated. Not all the countries agree about the definition of terror. Some support the Chechen rebels and blame Russia for provoking the war in Chechnya; others justify the suicide bombers of Hamas in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and describe them as freedom fighters. The same ambiguousness is referred to Abu Sayyaf in Southern Philippines or Islamic groups fighting in Indian Kashmir.

New Cold War, that is already effecting international relationships, that is now accelerating between USA and Russia about the American missiles defense system will, most likely, shatter the, already problematic, international cooperation in all fields including the war on terror.

On Saturday 07/14/2007 Russia said it will suspend participation in a key European arms control treaty, halting NATO inspections of its military sites and no longer limiting the numbers of its tanks and other heavy conventional weapons. The move, threatened for months, added new tension to relations with the West, already strained over U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe, Russian conflicts with its neighbors and Western criticism of Moscow’s human rights record.

In edition a major diplomatic crisis is growing between Russia and UK over the former FSB (the current name of the KGB) agent Alexander Litvinenko murder investigation. UK demand to extradite to British authority FSB agent Andrei Lugovoi, the prime suspect for poisoning and murdering Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210, in UK in 11/2006. Russia refused and claimed that UK refuses to extradite, in her turn, to Russia some oligarchs, like Boris Berezovsky, who are wanted in Russia for economical crimes.  UK ordered the expulsion of four Russian diplomats and Russia is threatening to respond with the expulsion of 80! British diplomats from Moscow.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko has said on 07/17/2007: “These are mutually exclusive statements taking into account the central role the federal security service takes in fighting terrorism both internationally and domestically” and the Russian ambassador to Britain, Yuri Fedotov, added  that it is “…hard to be optimistic” referring to the deteriorating crisis between Russia and UK.

In the days of the Cold War, in the four decades after World War II, the claim to be anti soviets granted, almost automatically, American support; to be anti American – Russian support. All kind of terror groups all over the world where supported by either one of the super powers if they caused enough trouble to the opponent super power.

Terror groups like the Red Brigades in Italy, the Bader-Meinhof in Germany, Palestinian socialist organizations and others were supported by the Soviet Union. USA supported, on the other side, gangs such as Contras in Guatemala, Unita in Angola or the Mujahidin in Afghanistan.

The renewal of the Cold War provides, among other things, new opportunities to the Global Jihad and is undermining the international effort to over come the expansion of Islamic militancy. 

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