The death of Said Buryatsky (weekly review)
By Vadim Borshchev, special to Prague Watchdog
It is hard to know what prompted an anonymous representative of the North Caucasus Islamist insurgency last week todeny the earlier Internet report that Said Buryatsky (aka Said Abu Saad al-Buryati, aka Aleksandr Tikhomirov) took part in the suicide bombing of the police department in Nazran, Ingushetia, on August 17, by the driving of a Gazelle cargo van laden with explosives into it. The attentive observer will have little difficulty in determining that the original version of the report was correct. One needs only to analyze the contents of the video footage of Buryatsky’s statement to see that this is so. In the video recording Buryatsky is sitting inside the Gazelle van. The footage was probably not taken in the mountains, as he is dressed in casual clothes, not the military camouflage of an Islamist insurgent which he would normally wear in the forest. His beard is cut short. For the Salafists, a beard is an obligation (fard) imposed by Allah, a sign of dignity and the hallmark of a true Muslim. In one of his lectures Buryatsky says: "Shaving the beard is changing the face of Allah’s creation and submission to the will of Satan." It is obvious that he would not have made such a radical change in his appearance unless it were absolutely necessary. He had to change his appearance for a very simple reason. In the Caucasus flatlands, a man with a beard dressed in camouflage uniform becomes a target as soon as a policeman or FSB officer sets eyes on him. But why did Buryatsky come down from the mountains, if not to take part in the operation? He could have issued another statement about the upcoming terrorist act without leaving his mountain base, without changing his appearance, and without calling on Allah against the background of his deadly cargo van. On several Internet forums it has been suggested that Buryatsky was one of the authors of the suicide blast and that he wanted to personally ensure that everything was progressing according to plan. This theory does not seem plausible. Buryatsky could hardly be regarded as an authority in military affairs since his principal merit was his alleged mastery of Salafist teaching and his ability to find arguments in favour of continuing the jihad. The role of controller or logistics assistant could be carried out by any ordinary Islamic insurgent. Buryatsky, whose ability to think logically is not in the slightest doubt, would have been perfectly aware that the technical control of the operation’s execution was a task for professional explosives experts, which he himself was not. An analysis of Buryatsky’s final confession leaves no room for anything but the assumption that he took a direct part in the attack on the Nazran police department. He talks quite specifically about his involvement in the operation, using the pronoun "we", which apparently applies both to his suicide partner (on the presence of a partner, see the Interior Ministry sources) and to the insurgency in general: "... this iron, praise be to Allah, we have prepared today (...). ... If Allah permits us to carry out this operation, we shall deliver this barrel as a present to our beloved Nazran City Police Department from the Mujahedin of the Caucasus Emirate (...). If Allah wills it, the main thing about this operation is that Allah has granted us His mercy and accepted from us our actions, which we are preparing for this path...” There can be no doubt at all that death was what Buryatsky had prepared himself for. If he were only a supervisor or witness of the operation he would be unlikely to address God with his “final entreaty”. That is the implication of the final words of the video message: “And saying this, I ask Allah for forgiveness for myself and for you, and our last prayer will be praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds! Peace to you all, Allah’s mercy and His blessing! " Thus, it can be considered a matter of absolutely established fact that Said Buryatsky took part in the suicide blast, and died in it. Another suggestion that has also been expressed been more than once, even in the form of a statement, is that the video was a performance staged in order to mislead the enemy and cover Buryatsky’s escape after the explosion. This seems far-fetched. The young fanatic does not give the impression of someone who is capable of using the name of Allah in order to ensure his own safety. In addition, as a Muslim theologian, Buryatsky would not have been able to avoid experiencing fear in the face of the temptation (fitnah) into which he would cast his numerous supporters, who might be led to imitate his death on the path of Allah.
(Translation by DM)
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