An online video featuring Islamist Doku Umarov has urged terrorists to attack the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
In the video, Umarov said an order not to attack Russian targets outside of the North Caucasus had been cancelled. Doku Umarov called hosting the Olympic Games in the Black Sea city the equivalent to performing “Satanic dances” on the graves of Muslims who were killed by Russian forces in the 19th century.
In the video, Umarov tells his radical Islamist followers:
“I call on you, every mujahid, either in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan or on the territory of the Caucasus to use maximum force on the path of Allah to disrupt this Satanic dancing on the bones of our ancestors.”
The Sochi Winter Games start in February 2014, and they are located just a few hundred miles from the violent North Caucasus region.
While Doku Umarov is urging an increase in violent terrorist acts, Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to tighten security for the $50 billion Sochi games.
Speaking further along in his video, which was released on kavkazcenter.com, Umarov noted:
“They (Russia) plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many dead Muslims, buried on the territory of our land on the Black Sea, and we as mujahideen are obliged to not permit that, using any methods allowed us by the almighty Allah.”
Russia and Doku Umarov have been at odds for years. Umarov is currently the country’s most wanted man after he helped orchestrate suicide bombings at the Moscow airport in 2011 and the Moscow subway in 2010, among other attacks.
Umarov issued a moratorium on attacks starting in February 2012. The moratorium specifically extended into regions where civilians may have been harmed.
While a moratorium was underway. Russian leaders managed to capture or kill some of Doku Umarov’s top insurgency leaders including his right-hand man.
