The role of Turkey and Idlib in the Moscow attack

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political commentator

The road to the Crocus Center in Moscow began in Turkey, as one of the attackers confessed who killed 143 concert goers and injured more than 150 on Friday night. Russia has said that all the attackers have been captured on their way to Ukraine in an effort to escape. A message on the social media, Telegram, claims responsibility for the attack by the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K). The US media reports that the US government had warned Russia of a possible attack being planned by the IS-K. The deadly attack is just days old, and a thorough investigation is needed, but what is clear: the road to the attack began in Turkey, and was part of a Radical Islamic revival sponsored by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

One of the attackers has confessed that he arrived in Russia from Turkey, and was radicalized there by an Islamic cleric. The confessor is a citizen of Tajikistan in central Asia. Turkey had been a secular government following the political ideology championed by the father of Turkey, Ataturk, who asked his nation in the aftermath of WWI to look to the west and become modern, while turning away from the east and old traditions which Ataturk saw as an obstacle to cultural and economic progress.

But, Erdogan was a follower of a political form of Islam, which is termed Radical Islam. Under the decades of Erdogan rule in Turkey, the society has turned back towards to the east, and embraced a non-secular trend. Erdogan claimed that the Turkish people are the descendants of ancient ethnic groups in central Asia. Places, like Tajikistan became recognized as ‘brothers’ to the Erdogan regime.
Members of IS-K and Al Qaeda from the Central Asian republics can legally reside and work in Turkey, successfully infiltrating the local society. They patiently await commands from their clerics to carry out terrorist attacks, adeptly navigating security measures. Istanbul’s Basaksehir, is a favorite haven for Uzbek, Tajik, and Turkmen migrants.

The US-NATO attack on Syria began in 2011 for the purpose of regime change. Erdogan, a long standing US ally was asked to be a partner in the Obama-led war on secular Syria, to create a Muslim Brotherhood friendly state in Damascus, who could be a perfect partner to the Muslim Brotherhood ruling party of Erdogan in Ankara. Obama launched a similar plan in both Libya and Egypt with varying success. The Muslim Brotherhood thrived in the US and UK and was represented in key positions in the government and society in both places. This was a group following Radical Islam, but they wore suits and ties and appeared to be productive members of society, all the while planning openly to deconstruct democratic governments little by little to realize their dream of an Islamic State with Islamic Law as the only constitution.

Russia had suffered many Radical Islamic terror attacks over decades killing dozens. President Putin saw the US-UK and Turkey sponsoring the terrorists in Syria, and by 2015 made a decision to save Syria from becoming an Islamic State by entering the battlefield against the terrorists who were gaining territory. As many experts explained at the time: Russia could stop the march of Radical Islam in Syria, or wait and battle them on the streets of Moscow.

Erdogan and Putin were pitted as enemies in Syria by the US-NATO war. After Turkey shot down a Russian plane over Syria, and a Turkish security officer killed a Russian diplomat in cold-blood, the relationship between the two major nations hit a low point.

But, the US stabbed their loyal ally Turkey in the back in Syria. Washington sponsored the Kurds who are the enemy of Turkey. The PKK is a terrorist group which has killed over 30,000 people over 30 years. The Kurds in Syria formed an armed militia the SDF and the YPJ which are directly tied to the PKK, and share the same Communist political ideology. The Pentagon took the SDF and YPJ under its wing and provided everything a modern army could want, including paychecks in dollars. Erdogan complained to Obama, to Trump and to Biden, but all his complaints about the Kurds fell on deaf ears in Washington.

Dr. Kamal Jafa, the geopolitical expert in Aleppo, reported that there was a meeting at the Al Shadade military base in Syria, under the occupation of the US military, between the SDF and Ukrainian officials seeking armed IS terrorists to fight the Russians in Ukraine. An agreement was made to transfer certain Russian speaking IS terrorists held in prisons by the SDF in Syria to Ukraine.

Ukraine was developing plans to work with the SDF to attack Russian troops in Syria. However, in late December 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called a halt to that planning, as The Washington Post reported, citing a leaked US document that dates from January 2023. The document also discusses the attitude of the Turkish government, which was aware of Ukraine’s planning to strike Russian targets in Syria.

Just hours after the Moscow attack, John Kirby ,a spokesman for President Biden’s National Security Council, stated publicly that the Ukrainians had nothing to do with the attack. People asked the question, “How would you know who is, or is not involved, when the attack just occurred, and no arrests have been made?” Others commented, “If you know who is not involved, then you must know who is involved.”
Idlib is the last terrorist controlled area in Syria. It is under the armed control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, commanded by Abu Mohamed al-Julani, who is on the US wanted list, with a $10 million bounty on his head. This is despite being in full view of the media, including the US media who came to interview him while wearing a suit and tie, in an effort by his American handlers to cleanup his image, and rebrand him as a US approved alternative to President Assad in Damascus.

All the UN and other humanitarian aid arriving in Idlib passes first through the hands of Julani and his terrorists, who distribute the aid to their families and associates, and refuse to share with those opposed to his Radical Islamic occupation. The left over aid is sold in Julani’s new shopping mall, Al Hamra, with its escalators taking shoppers over several luxurious floors.

Not surprisingly, recent street protests in Idlib have called for his ouster and execution from the 3 million civilians living under a brutal and repressive regime which forbids females to take part in any training programs offered by humanitarian groups.
Idlib is the place the US military attacked, claiming that IS-K was thriving there, and the same place that the US military on the order of Trump killed Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, and again in Idlib the US took out an ISIS officer.

Commentators have asked, if the US knows that Idlib is the headquarters of IS-K, and other armed groups following Radical Islam, why do they denounce the Syrian Arab Army, or their ally, the Russian military, and their plan to eliminate the terrorist presence in Idlib? If the whole world recognizes Idlib as a center for terrorism, then why not get rid of the threat, which poses a threat to civilians in Syria, Russia and Europe? The US and Turkey are keeping Idlib safe from attack in order to be able to use those armed assets when and where they chose.

Steven Sahiounie is two-time award-winning journalist