© Zuma\TASS

As director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin said on February 13, the US military is actively recruiting militants from jihadist groups affiliated with Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS] and Al-Qaeda to commit terrorist attacks in Russia and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS]. According to him, special attention is paid to engaging immigrants from Russia’s North Caucasus and Central Asia.

When providing this information, the SVR cites "credible reports." 60 experienced terrorists associated with ISIS and Al-Qaeda are said to have been picked up. All of them are currently being trained at America’s illegally deployed Al-Tanf base in Syria, taught to make and use improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and to master sabotage and subversive tactics. Particular attention is paid to planning attacks on well-protected facilities, including foreign diplomatic missions.

In turn, retired FSB Major-General Alexander Mikhailov noted that recruiting jihadist militants is limited to religious or ideological-political preferences alone, with a focus on radical structures ready to combat disbelievers. According to Mikhailov, there is always a huge number of radical Islamist soreheads easy to recruit. Apparently, this is what the Americans take advantage of.

Following statements by Sergei Naryshkin, the near future will see Washington deploy the militants as part of small groups to the territory of Russia and the CIS states. They will be tasked with preparing and carrying out terrorist attacks against diplomats, public officials, law enforcement officers, and military personnel. Those will be coordinated with terrorist organizations like Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jamaat Ansarullah and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (all the three banned in Russia).

This suggests the loss of any moral principles by the US security agencies, SVR emphasizes: “Obsessed with the crazy idea of ‘bleeding Russia dry’, Washington strategists presume it is acceptable to directly use terrorists for their dirty purposes. Such actions put Washington on a par with the largest international terrorist groups.”

As recently as on February 10, the Federal Security Service’s Public Relations Center reported that foreign spy agencies use Russia’s popular mail services to collect information about its ongoing special military operation in Ukraine and those engaged in it. By the way, January 20 saw presidential envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov talk about evidence of US attempts to establish contacts with the current Afghan authorities’ opponents and secretly sponsor ISIS.

Facts reveal that Sergei Naryshkin’s statement is not an empty shell. Suffice it to recall that in late 2022, a resident of the Volgograd region was sentenced to 8.5 years in a maximum-security labor camp for funding Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (recognized as terrorist and banned in Russia). And earlier, a criminal case was initiated against a resident of the Jewish Autonomous Region for alleged training at an ISIS camp. And this only represents the most recent data on Russia’s convicts, not to mention the number of cases at hand. The detention of terrorist saboteurs, especially in the regions bordering Ukraine, has soared since the beginning of Russia’s special military operation.

Back in spring of last year, Sergei Naryshkin wrote a piece for the National Defense magazine’s website that the United States was sending militants to Ukraine to establish a terrorist underground there. According to him, Washington uses the most despicable methods to prolong the conflict and "make it as costly as possible for both Moscow and Kiev, and at the same time preventing the escalation from spreading further to the West."

We emphasize that the United States has long been using terrorists to deal with its geopolitical opponents, and its current confrontation with Russia is yet another proof-of-principle. One may recall a number of historic examples with American intelligence agencies, primarily the CIA, resorting to terrorists in order to destabilize other countries. Moreover, the dedicated training of terrorists and mercenaries of all shades is conducted both in the US and abroad.

A typical example has been Washington’s Afghanistan policy. At a time when it hosted a limited Soviet military contingent, Washington actively helped the Mujahideen combat the USSR, seeking to poison the entire Islamic world’s mind against Moscow. Since the day our troops left Afghanistan, the United States has actively used various terrorist groups to sabotage stability in that country.

Latin American countries get especially sound hiding, where American intel engages various kinds of terrorist organizations and groups to fight the unpleasant, though legitimately elected authorities. For example, it took the United States years to deal with the Cuban revolution and physically eliminate Fidel Castro. Unproductively, however. Still, they managed to overthrow Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973, and, assisted by Sikh separatists, kill Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984. After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Al-Qaeda emissaries, including bin Laden, and instructors from the United States pretending to be the "servants of Islam", moved massively to Chechnya, causing the republic to destabilize greatly. In the late 1990s, Al-Qaeda militants got involved in the Yugoslavia war as the "foreign legion of the West".

Notably, the myth-like "war on international terrorism" has made it possible for Washington to generate pretexts for intervention against any state on charges of terrorist support. This was the case during the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003 respectively, and later in Libya and Syria.

Sometimes terrorist organizations, created and fueled by the United States, turn into a true tragedy to itself. This particularly happened with Al-Qaeda, whose militants committed the biggest terrorist attack in American history on September 11, 2001. They destroyed the twin towers of the New York-based World Trade Center, killing some 3,000 people from 57 countries.

Unfortunately, the United States has failed to draw a moral from this tragedy and keeps supporting terrorist organizations and groups throughout the world to accommodate itself. And the latest statement by intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin is a clear proof of this.