Among those who are recruited to DAISH, 85% are young people under 25

Today the OSCE Council of Ministers opens in Belgrade, at which the head of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry are going to discuss the process of the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, the problems of the Syrian crisis, as well as the situation over the Su-24 shot down by Turkey. “Now there are different opinions, polar views, that we should not have to interfere in the Syrian events. But the President has clearly said that we should not wait for terrorists to come to our houses and destroy them, and it is necessary to strike at terrorism, so far the Western powers only declare their participation, their fight against terrorism, but in practice they are doing nothing. We must strike at it in its lair, so as to prevent the spread of the terrorist plague in Russia,” Sergei Ivanov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Sultanate of Oman from 2005 to 2012, told Vestnik Kavkaza.

According to him, there are 22 million Muslims in Russia: “Ideas related to religious extremism, especially related to terrorism, is very dangerous for the internal stability of our state. Therefore, to fight in Syria, and just to help the Syrian people to recover their achievements, to rebuild their country in its borders, a single country, is worth it. We are doing this with a lower cost and with little blood. But unfortunately our bomber was shot down, of course, this does not add optimism.”

Meanwhile, Albir Krganov, Mufti of Moscow and the Central Region, Member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, says that “among those who are recruited to ISIS or DAISH, 85% are young people, who are 25 years old. They are the most vulnerable part of our population. These are not retired people, not adults, these are our young people, who, unfortunately, are being used. We face a lack of work of our civil and religious organizations and state and public institutions, together with our young people and with society as a whole.”

The Mufti thinks that “there is such a global hoax, global unrest, and it is very difficult to find the truth for a person. If you look for the same young people of the Arab world, we see the promises that are being given to them. Over the years they were not able to build socialism or democracy, and they would construct the supposedly correct, fair caliphate. In fact, it's just a redistribution of property, people earn money on blood, exploiting the feelings of believers. In connection with this challenge, of course, for Russia it is very important to maintain stability as a multinational, multi-religious, multicultural state.”

The Mufti believes that stability can be maintained only if people are educated: “Positive work has been started today in Moscow. At the proposal of the deputies of the Moscow City Duma, the project ‘Dialogue of Cultures’ has been launched, high school students and children from more than 50 schools visit churches, mosques, synagogues, datsans, and children are shown the way that their neighbours are living. I myself have spoken to these children, and those children have a completely different attitude towards other cultures.”

Krganov touches on not only the education system, but also the penitentiary system: “Wahhabis, salafis, radicalized Muslims say that it is not scary to go to prison. They say that they go to the madrassas of Yusuf Alayhi Salam. They even found a logical argument that he behaved innocently in prison and taught people in prison. So today Jamaats are established in prisons, and people with radical views are teaching other people.”

The Mufti urges to organize necessary conditions for believers and supervise them in major trade points: “It is a social environment, which could be hypothetically used by those radical people.”