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FULL TITLE: Chechnya opens world's first concentration camp for homosexuals since Hitler's in the 1930s where campaigners say gay men are being tortured with electric shocks and beaten to death Chechyna has opened the first concentration camp for homosexuals since Hitler, where campaigners say gay men are being tortured with electric shocks and beaten to death. It comes after it was claimed 100 gay men had been detained and three killed in Chechnya last week. A report by Novoya Gazeta said authorities had set up several camps where homosexuals are killed or forced to promise to leave the republic. One...

Istanbul, Turkey (AP) - Syria handed over 22 suspects to Turkey on Sunday in connection with four deadly suicide bombings in Istanbul, the semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported. The suspects, all Turks, reportedly fled the country after the attacks, which targeted two synagogues in near-simultaneous bombings Nov. 15 and the British consulate and a British bank in twin attacks five days later. A total of 61 people were killed. Citing a statement from paramilitary police, Anatolia said the suspects included Hilmi Tuglaoglu, a close associate of Azat Ekinci, a central suspect in the blasts. News reports have named Ekinci as...

Russian Taliban Suspect Sues United States Created: 28.06.2005 18:10 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:10 MSK, 6 hours 31 minutes ago Alexandra Zaitseva Gazeta.ru A former Guantanamo prisoner who is a Russian national filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government. This Tatarstan resident, Airat Vakhitov, issued a statement Tuesday that is capable of sparking a new wave of anti-American protests in Muslim countries. In his lawsuit, which is being examined in a U.S. civil court, Vakhitov not only demands that the authorities admit to inhumane treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo camp, but insists that they acknowledge that a majority of...

The State Department announced Wednesday that it has added two people to the federal list of designated terrorists, one of whom was once detained at Guantanamo Bay military prison. Ayrat Nasimovich Vakhitov, one of the newly added jihadists, was a former detainee at Guantanamo for less than two years from June 2002 until February 2004 before being turned over to Russian officials in his home country. Turkish authorities recently arrested Vahkitov in connection with the June 29 suicide bombings at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport that killed 42 people. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, U.S. and Turkish authorities...

MOSCOW — Donald J. Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, was widely condemned when he called for the United States to “take out the families” of terrorists. His approach — even after he clarified that he was not talking about killing the relatives — was dismissed by many as immoral and unlawful. Yet, it is the very tactic that Russia has pursued for decades. It is the signature, though officially unacknowledged, policy behind Moscow’s counterinsurgency and counterterrorism strategies, and Russia’s actions in smashing a Muslim separatist rebellion in the Caucasus provide a laboratory for testing Mr. Trump’s ideas. The family...

A crazed Chechen leader, once a Putin favorite, is embarrassing the Kremlin by threatening everyone. Ramzan Kadyrov may well be Vladimir Putin’s most ghoulish creation—a political Golem who remains slavishly loyal to the Russian leader but who also serves as a constant and nagging reminder of how ugly Putin-style autocracy can get when it really goes over the edge. Like the character Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov, Kadryov claims he is only fulfilling the wishes of his master, Putin, with his brutal tactics and threats to political opponents. The Chechen leader considers himself “Putin’s warrior,” and his never-fading mantra is...

Divas Sing for Despots, Round 15 Minaj by JOHN FUND December 20, 2015 Give rap superstar Nicki Minaj credit for having not a sliver of shame. After human-rights activists begged her not to sing at a Christmas show in the brutal African dictatorship of Angola for a reported $2 million, she flaunted her dealings with its regime. She posted photos of herself boarding a Gulfstream jet for Angola, another of her arriving, one of her in a sheer bodysuit prepping for the show, and one of her in concert with the caption Angola has my heart. And, obviously, the fat...

Ajnad Kavkaz, or Soldiers of the Caucasus, has released a short video claiming to show gear its fighters captured from Russian forces in Syria’s coastal Latakia province. The group is predominately comprised of Chechens and other jihadists from the North Caucasus. The video, which was translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, shows Hamza Shishani, Ajnad Kavkaz’s military emir, speaking to the camera. A militant to his right holds an alleged Russian bulletproof vest. “We were on the plains [likely referring to the Al Ghab plain near Latakia], when we found out that here in Latakia there was an operation,” Shishani...

Agence France-Presse Monday 12 October 2015 01.22 EDT Russian police foil 'terror attack' on Moscow after making arrests in city A group of people said to be planning an attack on Moscow have been taken into custody, anti-terrorism forces said, and 4kg of explosives seized Russian police have arrested a group of people they said were planning a terror attack on Moscow, the country’s anti-terrorism committee said. “After a series of investigations by the security services, a group of individuals was arrested in the west of Moscow suspected of planning a terrorist attack on the capital,” the committee was quoted...

Chechnya’s macho leader Ramzan Kadyrov is the most loyal of Vladimir Putin’s regional heads, at least in theory. The central street of the captial, Grozny, is called Putin Avenue, and the lampposts lining it are adorned with the Russian tricolour. Putin’s portrait looks down from dozens of buildings across the city, and Kadyrov’s Instagram account, his main method of communication with the outside world, is full of protestations that he is a “foot soldier”, supremely loyal to Russia’s great leader. But recent events, especially the murder of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, have led to renewed debate over whether the Kremlin’s...

Kabul needs Russian help in the fight against terrorist group "Islamic state". This was announced by the first Vice-President of Afghanistan General Abdul Rashid Dostum following the meeting with the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov. "Dostum said that ISIS is trying to make its foothold in Afghanistan. To prevent this threat Kabul needs Russian support, as in Syria. We are confident that the Russian leadership will make a positive decision in this matter," — wrote Kadyrov on his social network page. He also said that economic, trade and cultural cooperation was discussed at the meeting. On September 30th, Russian air...

The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has asked Vladimir Putin to send him to Syria, claiming that a land operation using Chechen ground troops would wipe out Islamic State terrorists. “The terrorists don’t know what a real war is, because they have only been subjected to airstrikes. They don’t have experience of real military action,” said Kadyrov in an interview with a Russian news agency. “If our request is granted, it will be a celebration for us,” he said. “But it’s the decision of the commander-in-chief to take.”

Dozens of Islamist Saudi Arabian clerics have called on Arab and Muslim countries to "give all moral, material, political and military" support to what they term a jihad, or holy war, against Syria's government and its Iranian and Russian backers. Although the clerics who signed the online statement are not affiliated with the government, their strong sectarian and anti-Christian language reflects mounting anger among many Saudis over Russian and Iranian involvement in Syria's civil war. Russia last week started airstrikes against Syrian opposition targets that it describes as aimed at weakening the jihadist Islamic State group, a move Riyadh has...

When protests broke out in Syria in late 2011, Russia hoped for a short, nasty war as a matter of Russian national interest -- just enough to put the Muslim Brotherhood and assorted Sunnis in their place. Violence from its own Sunni Muslim population has plagued Russia for decades. Saudi Arabia took over the defeated nationalist Chechen rebellion in the late 1990s, infusing it with money and Islamist overtones, prompting the second Chechen war. More recently, there has been open fighting and rioting in Moscow between Muslims and Slavs. Iran counted on a short war as well -- something to...

Yahoo Travel reported on Wednesday that three women in Chechnya took ISIS for $3,300 before getting caught. They are now under investigation for Internet fraud, which seems to be illegal even when committed against the most fearsome terrorist army in modern times. The scam seems to be a combination of the Nigerian Prince con, in which a mark is fooled into giving the con artist large sums of money and catfishing, in which the mark strikes up an online romance with someone he thinks is an attractive woman (or man depending on the gender and preference of the mark.)

"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..." "When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..." Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry. Dombey says there is...

The Chechen parliament have threatened to send weapons to Mexico in retaliation to the U.S. Congress calling for defensive lethal aid to be sent to Ukraine. On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favour of sending arms - the resolution was passed 348 to 48. U.S. senator for Wisconsin Ron Johnson branded it "absolutely necessary" that president Obama provide lethal and nonlethal military assistance to Ukraine, in light of the attacks by Russian-backed rebels on civilians in Mariupol in January. In response, Chechnya's parliamentary speaker Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov said that the U.S. has "no right" to advise Russia...

The existence of a long waiting list for potential suicide bombers was revealed in a recent ISIS guidebook published online telling potential suicide bombers to be patient after their training period, as they’d have to deal with a long waiting list. As a result, militants are forced to spend months waiting for a suicide mission and are getting killed in battle — considered to be a less noble way to die. Kamil Abu Sultan ad-Daghestani, a pro-Islamic State preacher from Dagestan, Russia, made the accusations in a recent post on the Russian language jihadi website Qonah claiming that rich Saudi...

Judge indicates he will limit government evidence against Al-Hussayen By BOB FICK , Associated Press, 04/22/2004 ______ A federal judge told prosecutors Thursday he would likely limit the e-mail evidence they can introduce against the University of Idaho graduate student they have accused of using his computer skills to foster terrorism. U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge withheld ruling on any specific e-mails sent to Sami Omar Al-Hussayen by others in the e-mail group devoted to Chechen Muslims until an attempt is actually made to offer them as evidence. Assistant U.S. Attorney David Deitch argued the e-mail's sent to Al-Hussayen...

We have heard repeatedly about Americans and Europeans fighting for ISIL, but little attention is being devoted to the Russian-speaking foreign fighters that make up the group. Their numbers are estimated at 500 or more. Omar al-Shishani is usually described as a prominent Islamic State fighter who is Chechen. In fact, he was born in the former Soviet republic of Georgia and was trained there. Some reports suggest these fighters are opposed to the Russian-backed Assad regime in Syria and Russia itself. But if this is the case, then why is Russia opposed to U.S. bombing of these terrorists? NBC...