The recent arrest of the alleged Times Square bomber who lived in Connecticut has the American public rethinking the origins of terrorism, just as last year’s conviction of members of the Liberty City Six in the Sears Tower bombing plot reawakened South Floridians to would-be attackers in our midst.
In both cases, U.S. officials deserve high praise for keeping innocent people safe and prosecuting criminals, but in our effort to monitor terrorist groups worldwide, I fear this administration is letting one group off the hook.
In preparing their 2009 report identifying foreign terrorist organizations, it appears the State Department forgot the Caucasus Emirate. This group claimed responsibility for the March 30 Moscow subway suicide bombings that killed 40 people. It reportedly prepared 20 suicide bombers in 2009, declared Jihad on the United States and Russia, and its original leader trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan.
If all that is not enough to justify listing the emirate as a terrorist organization, I don’t know what is. That is why I recently introduced House Resolution 1315 to urge the Obama administration to label members of the Caucasus Emirate what they are — terrorists.
Isolating violent extremists from political and financial support remains a key objective in the struggle against terrorism, and that is exactly what the State Department’s designations achieve. In naming specific groups as terrorist organizations, the United States stigmatizes them internationally and heightens awareness of their actions.
Unfortunately, the administration may see the group’s violent actions as merely another symptom of instability in the Caucasus region, because it seems they were not going to be listed as a foreign terrorist organization in a report that was scheduled to be released April 30.
After the introduction of my resolution, the State Department decided to delay that report’s release for four to six weeks to ensure its accuracy. I appreciate the department’s diligent work, but so long as the report fails to label the Caucasus Emirate a terrorist organization, it will fail to be accurate.
The designation invokes strong legal ramifications in the United States, making it illegal to knowingly provide material or technical support to members of the terrorist group. Members of known terrorist groups are barred from U.S. travel, and U.S. financial institutions are required to freeze funds linked to the organization and report them to the Treasury Department.
None of these actions have yet been taken against the Caucasus Emirate, despite it being responsible for a staggering 62 violent attacks in Russia since January. Indeed, there should be no question of the threat the Caucasus Emirate poses to the national security of the United States and our allies.
Even today, Caucasus Emirate affiliates continue to fight against U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration’s acknowledgement of this reality is a necessary step in our committed effort against violent extremism.
