By Catherine Putz
A deputy speaker in the State Duma floated the idea of restricting entry to Russia for citizens of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
On Friday night, a series of terrorist attacks in the French capital, Paris, left 129 people dead and injured 300 more. The devastating attacks drew international attention and set off a series of reactions–from sympathy to fear. In Russia, one of the responses has been to float the idea of restricting entry to the country for citizens of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. No mention was made of Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan.
The attacks in Paris were claimed by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and followed by swift retaliation. On Sunday, French fighter jets bombed ISIS’s self-declared capital in Raqqa, Syria. Over the weekend, additional details have emerged about the attackers and their accomplices. At least one of the attackers appears to still be on the loose, a Belgian named Salah Abdeslam–whose brother, Ibrahim, blew himself up on Boulevard Voltaire. Another Belgian, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, is said to have masterminded the attacks. One of those who assaulted the Bataclan concert hall–where 80 people were killed–was a French citizen named Ismael Omar Mostefai. A Syrian passport was found on one of the dead attackers, but French authorities say it is a fake–as Matt Ford wrote in The Atlantic this is “casting doubt on whether its bearer was a genuine refugee or even the person named in it.”
So far, none of those linked to the Paris attacks have been identified (or even rumored) to have come from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Read the full story at The Diplomat