Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Updated at 28 April 2009 0:38 Moscow Time.
The Moscow Times
FSB Under Fire for List Of Terrorist Tactics
27 April 2009By Nikolaus von Twickel / The Moscow TimesThe Federal Security Service has published a detailed list of terrorist tactics and activities on its web site that it says are typical of recent attacks.
But some critics say the document could serve as a how-to manual to would-be terrorists, telling them exactly what they should focus on and what to avoid.
The nearly 1,000-word document, titled "About Tactics Used For Diversionist-Terrorist Acts," was apparently only recently added to the FSB's web site under the heading "Professional Advice," which also contains articles advising citizens how to behave in a terror attack or a hostage situation.
The authors say the document is the result of FSB investigations into recent, unspecified terrorist attacks.
The tactics list includes a collection of indications of a terrorist plot, like the purchasing of nuts and bolts for bomb-building, and an overview of the advantages of suicide bombings, high number of victims and high publicity.
The document also contains a checklist of how terrorists plan attacks, starting with intelligence gathering at the target, choosing able candidates to carry out the attack, preparing them psychologically and planning emergency solutions like "liquidating the executor."
"The arsenal of methods to carry out attacks is very broad," the document says, and includes home-built explosive devices in cars and apartments, roadside bombs, suicide bombings and airline hijackings.
The Newsru.com news web site, which first reported about the document Friday, said the analysis could be viewed as detailed instructions on how to conduct attacks.
An FSB spokesman reached by telephone refused to comment on the document and asked for questions in writing. The FSB did not reply to faxed and e-mailed questions.
Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the security services who runs the Agentura.ru web site, expressed skepticism that the FSB document could teach terrorists information that they could not learn elsewhere.
"You can find plenty of better documents and instructions in the Internet," he said.
Soldatov added that terrorists preferred videos for instruction. "They are much easier to understand than reading and writing," he said.
The fuss about the FSB document is reminiscent of the reaction that followed a decision by the U.S. Justice Department to publish the so-called "Al-Qaida Manual," a document containing detailed instructions for would-be Islamist terrorists on how to wage war.
The guide was originally found by British police in 2000 when it raided an abandoned apartment in Manchester. An edited translation of the Arab original was later published on the U.S. Department of Justice's web site. The document is still searchable on the Internet, despite calls by British politicians to have it withdrawn.