Terror in the music hall

At the same time, it is clear that not all the so-called ‘Chechen terrorists’ are actually Chechen in origin. By a strange coincidence, the hostage taking in Moscow coincides with the admission in a German court by Mounir Motassadeq, a 28-year-old Moroccan and a member of the Hamburg cell suspected to be part of the group responsible for the terrorist acts of 9/11.

He revealed that he had travelled to Kandahar two years ago to join the Al Qaeda training camp to fight in Chechnya, but that he was sent back on the ground that that fighters were not needed for this purpose at that time. Time and again, the global linkages of international terrorism have been coming into focus. And running through almost all of them are the twin elements of religious motivation and separatism.

The crisis in Moscow only re-emphasises the true nature of the challenge of dealing successfully with terrorism. At the very minimum, eradicating terrorism would have to take cognisance of the reality that separatism, ethno-religious ideologies and the use of terror as an instrument of policy had been growing virtually unchecked, and even legitimised by some states, for more than two decades.

Ethno-religious separatist terrorism has been responsible for the death and injury to thousands of innocents across the world and has sought to exploit the emotions of impressionable young people, many of whom have not had access to modern education and employment. The real challenge, therefore, must be seen in terms of dealing with the ideas and factors that promote such violence.

The focus on the infrastructure of terrorism, disruption, dissolution and destruction of terrorist groups must obviously remain a central policy objective of the world’s nations. Unless the world firmly and finally rejects separatist terrorism, the incentive to use indiscriminate violence will continue.