"To all appearances, the ultimate sacrifice has been made" by the Russian Embassy employees, the ministry said. A group with links to al-Qaeda, which calls itself Majles-e-Shura al Mujahedeen (Mujahedeen Consultative Assembly), has taken responsibility for the kidnappings and killings.
On June 3, Fyodor Zaitsev, Oleg Fedoseyev, Rinat Agliulin, and Anatoly Smirnov were kidnapped as a team from the Russian Embassy was buying food nearby. Another Russian, Vitaly Titov, was killed on the spot. Only 16 days later did the Iraqi Islamist group claim responsibility, demanding that Russia pull out its troops from the separatist region of Chechnya and "free from custody all Muslim brothers and sisters" within 48 hours. On the day of the deadline, June 21, it became absolutely clear that the kidnapping had been anything but a spontaneous accident.
Over 200 foreigners and thousands of locals have been taken hostage in the three years since the start of the Iraq war. Western media report 44 to 55 non-Iraqi hostages have been killed - some from countries participating in the military campaign, others having nothing to do with it; some from military or diplomatic quarters, others journalists, people assisting with the rebuilding effort, or humanitarian workers. Russians were taken hostage for the first time in 2004. Russian energy services company Interenergoservis was close to ending its Iraqi activities after three of its employees were killed and eight injured in a series of attacks, one of which involved shots fired at a bus carrying company employees. Its employees were kidnapped on two occasions.
Those hostages were eventually freed. Moreover, one could think of various reasons, from holding them for ransom to sabotaging the national rebuilding effort and to a mere misunderstanding - hostages said they had been mistaken for Americans - behind the kidnappings. What has happened now, though, is different, a thoroughly planned and organized attack targeting Russians. This is the first time Russia has faced something similar to what has previously taken place in Iraq and elsewhere against Israel, America, and Britain - political demands stemming from a terrorist group based outside the country.
A question arises: Why Russian diplomats? And who will benefit from it? Last year, when the 7/7 London bombings occurred as the United Kingdom hosted the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, comes as the most obvious parallel. This year is Russia's turn, in what seems to be emerging as a new "terrorist tradition" of showing everyone they are not safe anywhere.
Iraq, though, is probably the last place on earth associated with safety. The post-Saddam authorities have so far failed to provide security, which means Iraq is a playing field tilted heavily in favor of terrorists, whatever their stated agenda, targets, and motivation. Now that terror groups have at their disposal a country that has been turned into a terror haven where they can terrorize the people of Iraq as well as foreigners coming there, they can target New York, London, or Moscow without the need to circumvent tight security efforts there.
This attack also leaves Russia, a nation that has always been against military action in Iraq and has called on the foreign military force to withdraw as soon as possible, in an awkward position. On the one hand, it looks like we are being dragged into an alien war. One the other hand, upon closer examination, the war does not look all that alien after all.
One could argue that, without the 2003 military campaign, Iraq would not have plunged into the chaos and lawlessness that made the hostage crisis possible. However, the chaotic security situation in Iraq was not the only cause of the tragedy. The other and equally important one is the wider war on terror that Russia, together with others, has been waging for years, losing its people in a Moscow theater, a Beslan school, and now in Iraq just as the U.K. lost its people in the Underground and the U.S. in the rubble of the Twin Towers.
