Al Qaeda threatens Russia

Al Nusra Front, the Syrian group affiliated with Al Qaeda, has explicitly threatened Russia for its intervention in Syria alongside Assad and then the Alawites, the Shia religious current that owns most of the Damascus government. In reality, Moscow has not entered in military operations for religious reasons, but political, keep Assad in charge of Syria and for strategic reasons, since the only Russian naval base in the Mediterranean is to Tartus in Syria. This unexpected threats are certainly not reached the Kremlin, but the direct appeal to the fundamentalists in the Caucasus, Russia can lead to a spiral of internal violence, characterized by possible stage of terrorism. This possibility can not be evaluated by the Russian government, still grappling with terrorism Caucasian; but the threat of Al-Qaeda threatens to raise the level of danger of the intentions of the Islamic terrorists in Russia. Putin also needs to assess this threat affects one of the countries that have provided a major numbers of foreign fighters to the forces of the caliphate: while many are still on the front line, many others are back at home and more indoctrinated with military preparedness more high. The evaluation of the intervention in Syria seems to have been based on the desire of Russia to play a major role on the international stage, to break the isolation imposed by the United States after the events in Crimea and also to divert attention from the Ukrainian issue, on which , actually, it seems diminished international pressure. When you get into a conflict they should be weighed the costs and benefits, whether for the majority of Russians, who after all have voted for Putin, it is important to re-establish the ranking of the great powers, trying to regain the lost place in the name of nationalism growing, which accords with the objectives of the Kremlin, the nightmare of terrorism may have been underestimating or otherwise evaluated so not too relevant. Thus it appears that Moscow considers to be able to control any outbreak, despite the threats are clear and explicit, and also addressed an audience of potential terrorists probably highly motivated and able to act as single cells and therefore more difficult to control. But the threat is not just about the interior of the country, as also the same troops on the Syrian front. Nusra Front to the specter of Afghanistan, when the Russian army was defeated by the Islamic fighters; this exhortation could have the effect of being able to bring together under one banner the various movements of matrix Sunni fighting in Syria and often at odds with each other. The threat of Al Qaeda could, however, also mean an attempt to regain political consensus at the expense of higher education in this conflict: the Islamic state. The disagreements between the two souls of Islamic terrorism are known and the fact that we have come to a merger of the two movements after years of war means that the chances of this event occurring are less and less likely. However the entrance on the ground of a power like Russia alongside Assad, which were also threatened fellow Alawites, could be a sign of the need to join forces against an enemy so powerful. Moreover, the greatest influence on foreign fighters may be exercised only by the Islamic state, and also on the ground most of the Syrian territory is in the hands of the caliphate, while Al Nusra Front oversees only some regions of the country. But this supremacy of the Islamic state may not be enough to counter the army of Moscow and then a unification may become almost mandatory. In theory, Russia has all the military force to get at least minimal success it has set itself and that the hold on power of Assad, different outcome might have to try to be the protagonists of the defeat of the Islamic State, in order to gain international prestige. The end result of the Afghan war has already been mentioned, and it is possible that the Russian forces can meet the difficulties that have so far made the Americans desist from a commitment on the ground. Besides, even the goal of keeping Assad in power is so obvious, in addition to the difficulties on the ground there are also those of international political order that might conflict with the result. For all these reasons, the Russian company in Syria is likely to become a bad investment, a decision made without too assess contraindications that a defeat, or even a partial victory could cause, both domestically and internationally.