[sinkspur]

The Chechens have their own issues with terror and dastardliness, but it's a matter of tools being wielded.

LOL!!! Do the mullahs in Iran have a problem with their own terrorists, too?

[Frank_Discussion]

I don't quite get your intended meaning. Let me rephrase what I said, for clarity:

Just because the Chechens can be heinous, evil terrorists does by no means exclude the Russian government from taking advantage of the situation, or indeed guiding events, to achieve a desired domestic result.

To be honest, I think this was possibly an FSB/KGB op that went beyond its mission definition, and I think Putin has some true anger over the brutality that resulted. Threatening to kill as many children as were in school would have been enough to anger the population, and I think the whole thing unexpectedly went to hell in a handcart. I'm disinclined to blindly swallow that Putin ordered the outright death of those poor babies, but I am prepared to accept that he was negligent.