Conspiracy theory on Moscow bombing serves Putin

Alan Woods, chief writer of Socialist Appeal/ Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), claims that Ukraine’s secret services were probably behind the 22 March ISIS attack in Moscow.

The claim serves Woods’s generally pro-Putin line on Ukraine, which has led him to play down Russian war crimes there.

Woods’s main evidence is that the killers fled the scene. “As a rule, Islamist terrorists do not leave the place of bloody execution. They do not flee, but fight to the death or blow themselves up with suicide vests. They never surrender. In fact, I cannot recall a single case where that has occurred, including the previous terrorist actions perpetrated inside Russia.”

Can Woods not recall the police manhunt following the Charlie Hebdo attack in 2015 or even what he wrote about it at the time? Or recall Hamas forces retreating from areas they seized on 7 October?

Then he claims that ISIS “has been conspicuously absent from the scene until now” and that it is more probable that an intelligence service could have employed washed-up terrorists. In fact ISIS is resurgent in some areas, with numerous attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an attempted attack on a Moscow synagogue 7 March. ISIS has a reason to go after Russia for its support of their enemies, the Taliban, Syria, and Iran.

Then he concludes that ISIS may after all have done the bombing: it “may have been the material authors of the crime, but it is quite possible that other, less visible, forces were involved”, meaning Ukraine. He admits that there is no firm evidence it was Ukraine.

His agenda is to “prove” that Ukraine should lose, and has lost, the war. He applauds Russia’s “overwhelming superiority” and “superior Russian tactics”.

He cites Ukraine’s policy of supporting national independence movements within Russia as an appeal to “reactionary Islamic fundamentalists”. Back in 1979-80 Woods was a chief author of the support support from the Militant (forerunner both of Socialist Appeal and the Socialist Party) for Russian troops in Afghanistan. On that issue, he is still on the same tack.

The eleven people arrested for the attacks are all Tajiks, already one of the most persecuted ethnic groups in Russia. Putin’s attempt to blame the attack on Ukraine will be used to escalate the war further with attacks on civilians. Ukrainians and Russians will suffer as part of Putin’s response.

That is what we should be talking about, not evidence-free conspiracy theories.