Monday, July 7, 2025
  • Who’sWho Africa AWARDS
  • About Time Africa Magazine
  • Contact Us
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
  • Home
  • Magazine
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • World News
    • US
    • UAE
    • Europe
    • UK
    • Israel-Hamas
    • Russia-Ukraine
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Lifestyle
  • Sports
  • Column
  • Interviews
  • Special Report
No Result
View All Result
Time Africa Magazine
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
  • News
  • Magazine
  • World News

Home » Column » Putin Must Now Realise He’s Been Fighting The Wrong War

Putin Must Now Realise He’s Been Fighting The Wrong War

March 31, 2024
in Column, Featured
0
543
SHARES
4.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Con Coughlin | Defence And Foreign Affairs Editor |

Russian President Vladimir Putin may have convinced himself that Russia’s main enemy lies in the West. But the deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall carried out by an offshoot of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) demonstrates that Islamist terrorists pose a far more deadly threat to his country’s well-being.

The Kremlin has a long and bloody history of fighting Islamist extremism, from Russia’s brutal military campaign in Chechnya – Putin’s first war after becoming president – to Moscow’s more recent military intervention in Syria, where Russian forces were involved in eliminating Isil’s self-declared caliphate in Raqqa.

It is worth remembering that Putin’s primary justification for deploying Russian forces to Syria in 2015 was to target the Islamist militants who had seized control of large swathes of the country, even if his main motivation was to keep the Assad regime, long-standing allies of Moscow, in power.

Explaining his decision to intervene in Syria in a speech to the UN General Assembly in September 2015, Putin made a rousing call for an international coalition to fight global terrorism, comparing the campaign to defeat Isil to allied efforts to defeat the Nazis during the Second World War.

ReadAlso

There is zero chance of China and Russia going to war for Iran

Russia hired African farmers to make shampoo, then sent them to war

These days, Putin has adopted an entirely different approach, one where confronting the West, not Islamist extremism, has become his main priority. Many of the Russian forces that fought Isil in Syria are now mired in a brutal conflict in Ukraine.
After the devastating attack on Moscow’s Crocus City concert hall, where at least 133 people were gunned down by a group of Islamist terrorists, Putin may well reflect that, by concentrating his military focus on Ukraine, he now finds himself fighting the wrong war.

After the destruction of Isil’s caliphate in Syria in 2017, there has been a worrying tendency, both in Moscow and the West, to believe the threat posed by Islamist militants is on the wane.

ADVERTISEMENT

That was certainly the thinking that informed the Biden administration’s disastrous decision to withdraw US-led coalition forces from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, handing control of the country over to the Taliban, Isil’s ideological soulmates. Putin even made a rare public declaration in support of the decision. It’s a judgment he may well come to regret following reports that the group responsible for the concert hall attack was based in Afghanistan and operating under the Taliban’s protection.
While most world leaders regard the Taliban regime in Kabul as relatively benign, that is not the view of the Western intelligence community which, on the contrary, believes Afghanistan has once again become a safe haven for Islamist terror networks. Moreover, one of the more calamitous consequences of the 2021 withdrawal was the complete destruction of the West’s intelligence-gathering network there.

This has eroded our ability to confront the Islamist threat, and at a time when terrorist organisations like Hamas – which adheres to the same Islamist creed as the Taliban – are increasing their capacity to carry out large-scale operations such as that of October 7. The tactics used by the terror group responsible for the Moscow attack were disturbingly similar to those that Hamas used in its assault on Israeli civilians.
In such circumstances Putin, instead of escalating his confrontation with the West, would be better advised to give his backing to an international effort to combat the modern menace of Islamist-inspired terrorism.

A good place to start would be at the UN where Moscow could concentrate its efforts on tackling the disturbing rise of Islamist terrorism. That could prove far more effective at keeping Russia’s citizens safe than persisting with his unwinnable war in Ukraine.

Tags: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)RussiaVladimir Putin.
ADVERTISEMENT
Previous Post

Nigerian Family In Canada Says They Face ‘Persecution’ If Deported

Next Post

Rivers Assembly Roasts Gov. Fubara In Renewed Outburst Of Anger

You MayAlso Like

Column

OPINION |  Senate Rebels Against Court in Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan Case: A Constitutional Timebomb

July 5, 2025
Column

Tinubu’s end game on Fubara

July 4, 2025
Featured

The Sheikh Who Conquered Soccer and Coddles Warlords

July 4, 2025
Featured

Trump Plans to Deport Elon Musk and Zohran Mamdani

July 4, 2025
Column

Will Senate President Akpabio Comply with the Court Order and Reinstate Akpoti-Uduaghan?

July 4, 2025
Featured

Senator Natasha: Nigeria’s Senate President Akpabio Brought To Heel By Legal Checks

July 4, 2025
Next Post

Rivers Assembly Roasts Gov. Fubara In Renewed Outburst Of Anger

Netanyahu to undergo hernia surgery

Discussion about this post

Why Igbos Must Stop Storing Corpses in Mortuaries — Ogilisi Igbo Speaks Out

Almost 400 human corpses found piled high in mysterious house of horrors

Senator Natasha: Nigeria’s Senate President Akpabio Brought To Heel By Legal Checks

OPINION |  Senate Rebels Against Court in Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan Case: A Constitutional Timebomb

Will Senate President Akpabio Comply with the Court Order and Reinstate Akpoti-Uduaghan?

Tinubu’s end game on Fubara

  • British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

    1238 shares
    Share 495 Tweet 310
  • Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

    1064 shares
    Share 426 Tweet 266
  • Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

    967 shares
    Share 387 Tweet 242
  • ‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

    902 shares
    Share 360 Tweet 225
  • Crisis echoes, fears grow in Amechi Awkunanaw in Enugu State

    735 shares
    Share 294 Tweet 184
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest

British government apologizes to Peter Obi, as hired impostors, master manipulators on rampage abroad

April 13, 2023

Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

December 27, 2022
Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

Flight Attendant Sees Late Husband On Plane

September 22, 2023
‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

‘Céline Dion Dead 2023’: Singer killed By Internet Death Hoax

March 21, 2023
Chief Mrs Ebelechukwu, wife of Willie Obiano, former governor of Anambra state

NIGERIA: No, wife of Biafran warlord, Bianca Ojukwu lied – Ebele Obiano:

0

SOUTH AFRICA: TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE?

0
kelechi iheanacho

TOP SCORER: IHEANACHA

0
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan

WHAT CAN’TBE TAKEN AWAY FROM JONATHAN

0

Ngozi George Honoured for Using Diplomacy to Champion Orphans’ Welfare

July 6, 2025

Elon Musk sets up new political party in wake of falling-out with Trump

July 6, 2025

OPINION |  Senate Rebels Against Court in Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan Case: A Constitutional Timebomb

July 5, 2025

Diogo Jota’s distraught family joined by footballing stars for heart-wrenching funeral days after car crash

July 5, 2025

ABOUT US

Time Africa Magazine

TIME AFRICA MAGAZINE is an African Magazine with a culture of excellence; a magazine without peer. Nearly a third of its readers hold advanced degrees and include novelists, … READ MORE >>

SECTIONS

  • Aviation
  • Column
  • Crime
  • Europe
  • Featured
  • Gallery
  • Health
  • Interviews
  • Israel-Hamas
  • Lifestyle
  • Magazine
  • Middle-East
  • News
  • Politics
  • Press Release
  • Russia-Ukraine
  • Science
  • Special Report
  • Sports
  • TV/Radio
  • UAE
  • UK
  • US
  • World News

Useful Links

  • AllAfrica
  • Channel Africa
  • El Khabar
  • The Guardian
  • Cairo Live
  • Le Republicain
  • Magazine: 9771144975608
  • Subscribe to TIME AFRICA biweekly news magazine

    Enjoy handpicked stories from around African continent,
    delivered anywhere in the world

    Subscribe

    • About Time Africa Magazine
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    No Result
    View All Result
    • WHO’SWHO AWARDS
    • Politics
    • Column
    • Interviews
    • Gallery
    • Lifestyle
    • Special Report
    • Sports
    • TV/Radio
    • Aviation
    • Health
    • Science
    • World News

    © 2025 Time Africa Magazine - All Right Reserved. Time Africa is a trademark of Times Associates, registered in the U.S, & Nigeria. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service.

    This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.