By Jaime Ortega.
As if the threat was not clear, the Islamist insurgency in Russia certified yesterday that their goal is to ruin the Olympic celebrations set for next month. Two men with explosive belts appeared yesterday in a video warning the Russian President , Vladimir Putin , that he could have “a gift ” in the upcoming Sochi Winter Games on February 7.
The video was sent by a group that calls itself Vilayat Dagestan and appears on a website often used by militants in the region of the North Caucasus where Moscow has been fighting insurgents for more than a decade.
So far the information has not been independently corroborated. The Russian agency for combating terrorism said that it analyzed the video released by the Islamic fundamentalist group that caused 34 deaths in the city of Volgograd last December.
In the picture the men appear with assault rifles. They call themselves Abdulrakhman and Suleiman , which appear before a banner in Arabic. “I have prepared a gift …. [ tell President Vladimir Putin ] , for you and all the tourists that arrive ” they say. “If you celebrate the Games, you will receive this gift by all the Muslim blood spilled all around the world , in Afghanistan , Somalia , Syria …”. Since last summer, the insurgent leader Doku Umarov threatened the Games, which is the Kremlins big bet to finally boost the image of the country .
Not just looking to challenge Moscow’s power, the group remembers other battles. Under When the soviets fought the czars in the nineteenth century. This has unnerved followers of Umarov , who’s idea aims to create an emirate in the North Caucasus. He died last week in a clash with soldiers. The announcement was made by the government of Chechnya, but the body has not appeared and Moscow has not confirmed the news. Not the first time for a dead Chechen to mysteriously disappear without the Kremlins knowledge.
Putin has been keen to achieve and organize well these Winter Games. To fortify the city on the Black Sea Putin launched a major security operation, which involved about 37,000 agents. But the recent suicide bombings in Volgograd city , located in the same area of southern Russia , shows that a small cell of several radicals is willing to give their lives and create widespread terror.
Vladimir Putin has come out to put down these fears, that is much of concern to some Olympic delegations: ” We know the situation well, we know the threat , how to stop it and how to combat it,” he said at a rally on the occasion of the Games .
The two men who appear in the video , which come out speaking in Russian are identified as members of Ansar al- Sunna., one of the groups operating in Iraq. But it is unclear whether they received training resources or just adopted their name.
Neither was confirmed if the two men were responsible for executing the suicide bombing, in the train station last december. The national anti-terrorism committee said that they will analyze the video and would not comment for now.
