U.S. adds 3 Chechen Islamist groups to terror list
U.S. blacklists Islamic groups
March 01, 2003
The United States has placed three Chechen rebel groups on its blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations, linking them to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and freezing any assets they may have on U.S. territory, the State Department said yesterday.
Russia has been urging the United States to designate the groups — the Islamic International Brigade, the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment and the Riyadus-Salikhin Battalion — as terrorists for more than a year. It cited various violent acts they have committed, including the hostage-taking at Moscow's Dubrovka Theater in October, in which 129 persons died.
But Washington dismissed suggestions that the move rewards Moscow at a time when its vote on the U.N. Security Council is badly needed in support of a war in Iraq. U.S. officials insisted that they had blacklisted the groups because they "threatened the safety of U.S. citizens and U.S. national security or foreign policy interests."
"We recognize that there are terrorist elements among those fighting Russian forces in Chechnya," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters. "At the same time, we do not consider all Chechen fighters to be terrorists." [...]
U.S. officials said the three groups did not exactly match the ones Russia wanted to see blacklisted. Riyadus-Salikhin, Arabic for Fields of the Righteous, was not known until the theater attack and drew its members from the two other organizations, they said.
The officials identified Shamil Basayev* as a key rebel, whom they described as the leader of Riyadus-Salikhin and former commander of the International Islamic Brigade. [...]
The United States, which repeatedly criticized Russia's campaign against Chechnya for abusing human rights, has softened its stance since September 11, viewing the conflict as part of the global fight against terrorism. Mr. Boucher said the matter has also been taken up by the United Nations.
"Because these three groups are linked to al Qaeda, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, China and Spain have requested today that the United Nations 1267 Sanctions Committee include the groups on its consolidated list," he said.
The spokesman said France has indicated it will join the designation, which would be the first time all five permanent members of the Security Council have joined in submitting names to the sanctions committee.