In an interview with Sputnik Deutschland published Nov. 4, former KGB and later FSB head for anti-terrorism Vladimir Lutsenko (transliterated in German as Wladimir Luzenko), called for going after the controllers of terrorism, including those in Saudi Arabia and Britain.
“It has long been emphasized that Europe should unite and finally take serious action against terrorism instead of chasing the cockroaches around the world,” said Lutsenko, according to Google translate. “That means closing down the headquarters, the ideologues and the sponsors, instead of just worrying about the individual boys who get these crazy ideas in their heads and are therefore more like cannon fodder.”
“These young idiots, the perpetrators, are being brainwashed. After all, if they go to kill for an idea, they have no commercial goals,” says Lutsenko. He goes on to say that their masters use the internet and funding to control them.
Recounting how the Austrian attacker was a supporter of Islamic State, and for which he was arrested but then released, Lutsenko said while the Austrian secret service miscalculated in the case, he does not want to push the secret services into a corner, but rather the politicians, “whose heads should be turned around properly.”
“Should I teach the Austrian police how to work? That would be nonsense. The secret services also know how to work. Here it is not the secret services but the politicians who have to be beaten,” said Lutsenko.
He said European politicians are neither resolute nor united and that the ideologues of the Islamic State in Saudi Arabia are not given enough attention by politicians who have “double standards.” He pointed out that well-known Islamist ideologues such as Akhmed Zakayev, prime minister of the so-called Chechen government in exile, or Movladi Udugow, would probably have been given refuge in Britain and Saudi Arabia, instead of punishment. Lutsenko also mentioned similar “double standards” in the case of the Georgian Zelimkhan Khangoshvili who was murdered in Berlin in August 2019. Kangoshvili had been wanted in Russia for involvement in metro bombings and other terrorist acts, and Moscow repeatedly sought his extradition. Zakayev is living in London, where he has been given political asylum.
Citing the offer for cooperation by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his letter of condolence to the Austria, Lutsenko called for a joint fight against terrorism apart from “shooting individual perpetrators on the streets of peaceful cities.” However, it would require “understanding” at higher levels, enforcement by the politicians, because the secret services alone are just “a hammer,” he said. Earlier in the 90s, interceded Sputnik’s interlocutor, there was such cooperation between Russia and the United States, in which terrorism was defined as a term and common plans were developed. She closes, “Unfortunately, it has gradually been frozen.”
