Russia faces different threat with metro bombing

AAND kbarzhon Jalilov, the man suspected of blowing up a Russian metro train, represents a new wave of radicals who blend into local society away from existing terror movements — making it harder for security forces to stop their attacks. His pages on the Russian equivalent of Facebook show Jalilov’s interest in a conservative form of religion.

But they give no indication that he might resort to violence, presenting a picture of a typical young man leading a largely secular life.

Fourteen people were killed and 50 wounded in the suicide bomb attack on Monday on the metro carriage in St Petersburg. Russian state investigators said the suspected bomber was Jalilov, a 23-year-old born in the ex-Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan.

If radicalism was indeed his motive, he will be distinct from two previous waves of attackers — those from Russia’s restive North Caucasus region who fought successive rebellions against Moscow; and a later group who went to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside the IS group.

The new generation may take inspiration or instruction from people involved in those previous fights, and are drawn from the same communities.

However, they are not directly linked to those militant organisations and have not created the trail of arrest warrants, tapped phone calls, travel documents and monitored border crossings on which security forces usually rely to keep tabs on violent radicals.

“It’s a completely different kind, a different level of terrorist threat from the one that Russian security services are used to dealing with,” said Andrei Soldatov, a Russian expert on the intelligence services.

Security services typically look for an organisation and financing network behind a terror attack, he said, but those may not exist in cases such as the metro bombing. “It’s very difficult to counter things like this,” Soldatov said.

British police have run into similar problems investigating the case of Khalid Masood, who sped across Westminster Bridge in a car last month, killing three pedestrians and injuring dozens more, before stabbing a policeman to death. Shot dead by police, Masood also had no known links to terror groups.

Jalilov is typical of millions of young men living in Russia. There was nothing apparent from his background and lifestyle that made him stand out for the authorities.

An ethnic Uzbek from the southern Kyrgyzstan city of Osh, he moved with his father to St Petersburg for work several years ago, according to neighbours in Osh.

In Russia, he worked with his father as a panel beater in a car repair shop, they said.

An acquaintance from St Petersburg said Jalilov had worked for about a year in a chain of sushi restaurants.

A second acquaintance said he was a fan of sambo, a form of martial arts popular in Russia.

He owned a Daewoo car, according to a source in the Russian authorities, and was registered at an apartment in a quiet, upscale neighbourhood of suburban St Petersburg.

A person who said he was a representative of the apartment’s owner said Jalilov had never lived there, but that he had granted him with a temporary registration at the flat as a favour to some mutual acquaintances.

Jalilov’s page on VKontake, a Russian social media website, has photographs showing him wearing stylish Western dress, in a restaurant.

His page had a link to the home page of boxer Mike Tyson. But he also had an interest in religion. Security officials say the earlier generations of violent fighters are now largely out of the picture.