Extremists Aiming at 'Soft Targets'

AP ^ | 9/3/04 | WILLIAM J. KOLE

[TexKat]

VIENNA, Austria - In Iraq, they've sawed off people's heads in grisly executions shown on the Internet. In Israel, they've blown themselves up inside packed buses. Now, in Russia, they've turned a school into a slaughterhouse.

Extremists have become chillingly brazen in singling out so-called "soft targets" — and counterterrorism experts say they fear nothing is off-limits anymore to those intent on achieving maximum punch, publicity and paranoia.

This week's bloody school standoff in southern Russia, which culminated Friday in a commando raid and scores of civilian casualties that included children, shattered whatever might have remained of the notion that innocents are taboo terror victims.

"They're crossing thresholds — no question about it," said Jonathan Stevenson, a terrorism expert with the Washington office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Militants "are becoming much more educated in terms of what will have an effect," said Sandra Bell, director of homeland security at the Royal United Services Center, a London think tank.

Extremists in Russia's breakaway Chechnya region increasingly have adopted the tactics of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida and other Middle Eastern terrorism groups, said Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based counterterrorism expert. Soft targets such as hospitals, theaters and concerts, have been a Chechen hallmark since the start of the conflict a decade ago.

"They have blown up mosques, attacked transportation infrastructure, destroyed planes and now conducted a mass hostage-taking," he said.

"These groups are copycats and imitative, not innovative. ... In terms of scale, this is unprecedented and follows the category of spectacular and theatrical attacks akin to al-Qaida."

Experts tracking terrorist cells say the trend toward soft targets is undeniable — and probably unstoppable.

In the 1970s, the Irish Republican Army pioneered the use of car bombs in Britain and Northern Ireland. A decade later, pro-Iranian Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant groups used kidnappings to maximum effect, holding dozens of foreigners in captivity for years.

In the 1990s, embassies, government buildings and crowded subways became targets.

Algerian Islamic extremists planted bombs that terrorized Paris subway commuters in 1995, killing eight people and wounding more than 200 others. That same year, a Japanese doomsday cult killed 12 people and injured thousands in a nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways.

Terry Nichols conspired with bomber Timothy McVeigh (news - web sites) to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people. Three years later, al-Qaida bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 231.

Then came the spectacular Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed more than 2,700 people in hijacked-plane strikes against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Israel has been bloodied by scores of such attacks mounted by Palestinian suicide bombers, including a 2001 attack at a seaside disco in Tel Aviv that killed 21, mostly teenagers, and restaurant bombings that killed 29 in Netanya in 2002 and 19 in Haifa last year.

One explanation for the shift is that tactics that triggered international outrage just 20 years ago — such as the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro by Palestinian militants who killed a wheelchair-bound American tourist and tossed his body overboard — might seem relatively tame to a world stunned by the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Militants are now trying to damage their enemies any way they can, to search for soft targets such as schools and underground stations," said Dia'a Rashwan, an Egyptian expert on Islamic extremism.

But the strategy can backfire.

After IRA terrorists came under scathing Catholic condemnation for civilian carnage, they focused mainly on bombs detonated with advance warning that inflicted huge economic damage on London's financial district while killing fewer bystanders.

Palestinian militant groups are unlikely to follow the Russian militants' lead and take schoolchildren hostage because it could detract from their aim to be seen as "resistance fighters, not terrorists," Rashwan said.

The Quran admonishes the followers of Islam that not even the children of infidels should be killed. The Palestinian militant group Hamas contends its policy is not to target children, although it justifies attacks on civilians to avenge Israeli army attacks on ordinary citizens.

Abu Mahmoud, a spokesman for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank, said the group was "shocked by what we see on television" about the Russian school standoff.

"We would never agree to such a thing," he said. "We never did such a thing and never would. When there is an explosion and children are killed, we are sorry for this because this was a mistake, not on purpose."

___

AP writers Beth Gardiner in London, Paul Garwood in Cairo and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed to this story.

[TexKat]

Bodies of schoolchildren killed in a school seizure are seen in Beslan, North Ossetia, Friday, Sept. 3, 2004. Russia's hostage crisis erupted into explosions, gunfire and screams of fleeing children Friday as commandos stormed the school where militants strapped with bombs had held as many as 1,200 people hostage. More than 150 people were dead, and officials said the toll would rise significantly. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

Bodies of schoolchildren killed in a school seizure seen in Beslan, North Ossetia, Friday, Sept. 3, 2004. Russia's hostage crisis erupted into explosions, gunfire and screams of fleeing children Friday as commandos stormed the school where militants strapped with bombs had held as many as 1,200 people hostage. More than 150 people were dead, and officials said the toll would rise significantly. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

[TexKat]

An injured schoolgirl who escaped from the seized Russian school holds a cross in her hand in a hospital in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia Friday, Sept. 3, 2004. Commandos stormed a school Friday in southern Russia where hundreds of hostages had been held for three days, sending hostage-takers and their captives fleeing in a scene of chaos amid explosions and gunfire. More than 100 children were wounded in the assault, some running from the building naked and covered in blood. (AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)

[Mamzelle]

The fruit of Islam.

By their fruits, shall ye know them.

[sukhoi-30mki]

Excuse me,what are the targets these folks don't aim at??pig shelters????

[FormerACLUmember]

About half the IslamoFascist murdering vermin were Arab mercenaries.

It is obvious that al Queda is orchestrating the campaign against the Russian population.

[nightdriver]

"The Quran admonishes the followers of Islam that not even the children of infidels should be killed."

This just proves that Bill Kohl and the contributing AP writers are woefully ignorant of the "Quran!"

[sockmonkey]

I am weeping looking at the pictures of these innocents.

I know it's something we need to see lest we forget these kinds of extremists wish the same for our children, too.

[pabianice]

John Kerry condemned them before he found a more nuanced explanation...

[yankeedame]

Extremists have become chillingly brazen in singling out so-called "soft targets" — and counterterrorism experts say they fear nothing is off-limits anymore to those intent on achieving maximum punch, publicity and paranoia. kicks.... b/c if you don't think these thugs get a buzz (a rise?) out of this....

[Bahbah]

I guess targets don't get much softer than children.

[Rutles4Ever]

Extremists...extremists...extremists...

Incredible.

[isthisnickcool]

Again, ANOTHER "news" story missing key words.

[nyconse]

The author of this article is basically saying-give up we can not stop this...YES WE CAN AND WE WILL.

[vrwcagent0498]

As much as it breaks my heart, these pictures need to be on the front page of every newspaper this morning.

Wake up world!

[I still care]

Something Netanyahou said years ago, on Fox in a debate with a liberal (It always stuck with me):

"Israel is the only country in the world that has to have security guards in their nursery schools."

I think the rest of the world is learning the lessons the Islamofascists have taught Israel.

[TopDog2]

"They have blown up mosques, attacked transportation infrastructure, destroyed planes and now conducted a mass hostage-taking," he said

Why would they blow up their own buildings? This article refuses to call the phony-a$$, moon god death-cult worshippers what they are...

[vrwcagent0498]

http://www.logicandsanity.com/archives/2004/09/hostages_zalina.html

[I still care]

"Extremists in Russia's breakaway Chechnya region increasingly have adopted the tactics of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida and other Middle Eastern terrorism groups"

Uh, duh, could this be because there are possible ties between militant Muslim Islamofascist terrorist groups, as much as the MSM tries to deny it?

[BenLurkin]

What, can't they bring themselves to call the perpetrators what they REALLY are?

[Inspectorette]

Again, ANOTHER "news" story missing key words.

Umm - let me see: "Muslim"? "Islamic"?

My guts have been churning about this atrocity ever since it began. I think we all knew it would end up this way: these people are savages, and I fear we will be seeing this kind of thing here if John Kerry becomes president.

I wish my grandchildren were here so I could hug them extra tightly tonight - but they're on Okinawa with their Mom, my daughter, as my son-in-law heads to Iraq with the 31st MEU.