Posted on 11/13/2004 3:19:19 AM PST by Snapple
CHECHEN WARLORD WARNS OF NEW TERRORIST ATTACKS. Since masterminding the hostage-taking in the south Russian town of Budennovsk in the summer of 1995, radical Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev has claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist acts that have claimed hundreds of Russian lives. His ill-fated incursion into Daghestan in August 1999 in the wake of an unsuccessful attempt to sideline Chechen President Aslan Maskahdov served as the rationale for the Russian leadership to launch its second war against Chechnya in October of that year under the pretext of combating terrorism.
Yet although Basaev is routinely reviled by leading Russian politicians and has been designated an international terrorist by the U.S., the Russian military have for five years failed to apprehend him, despite offering a reward of 300 million (over $10 million) for information leading to his capture (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 9 September 2004). Basaev's seeming immunity has fuelled speculation in the Russian press that he may be acting at the behest of, and/or enjoy the protection of, the Federal Security Service.
On 31 October, chechenpress.info posted extensive replies by Basaev to questions submitted in mid-September by a Canadian journalist employed by the "Toronto Globe and Mail." When the paper subsequently requested proof of the authenticity of Basaev's responses, Basaev's website (http://www.kavkaz-center.com) said that if the paper failed to publish the interview within three days, it would forfeit the exclusive rights to it. The website then posted the entire text of the interview, which runs to some 7,500 words (The English version is available at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041102/CHECHEN02/TPInternational/?query=basayev).
Basaev fielded questions on a range of issues, from the Beslan school hostage taking in early September and what he considers the international community's unpardonable complicity in war crimes committed by Russian forces in Chechnya, to episodes from his military activities over the past decade, including an ill-fated visit to Pakistan in the hope of learning from the experience of former Afghan mujahedin in shooting down Russian helicopters and ambushing Russian troops.
Basaev professed to have been "shaken" by Moscow's response to the seizure by Basaev's men of the roughly thousand hostages in Beslan in September, as he did not anticipate that Russian President Vladimir Putin would sacrifice the lives of children -- especially Ossetian children, given that Ossetia has always been a Russian ally in the North Caucasus. Basaev implied that he anticipated that Moscow would comply with the hostage-takers' demand for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya. "I thought I was doing the Russians a favor by showing them the way out of a blind alley," Basaev explained.
Basaev said that he regrets that "so many children died at the hands of the Russians" in Beslan, but that he does not regret the seizure of the school. Basaev then warned that as long as Russia continues to violate the Geneva Conventions, his fighters will do likewise. "It is the enemy who sets the limits to our actions, and we are free to resort to the methods and actions that the enemy first employed against us," including the use of chemical and biological weapons, Basaev argued. "We are ready, and want to wage war according to international law, it is even to our advantage to do so in terms of protecting the civilian population. But unlike President Maskhadov, we do not want to be the only side to espouse those tactics." Basaev further warned that his men may resort to terrorism against the citizens of states whose leaders support Putin's Chechen policy. (In footage screened by Al-Jazeera television in early July, however, Basaev said his men were not planning any attacks outside Russia.) Basaev said that if Putin had responded to his January appeal to abide by the Geneva Conventions, or if the international community had pressured Putin to make such a statement, then he would not have resorted either to the Beslan hostage taking or the Moscow metro bombing and the destruction of two Russian passenger aircraft in August.
Basaev said that he met in late July with Maskhadov, who has repeatedly insisted that the fighters under his command strictly observe the Geneva Conventions and refrain from targeting civilians, and tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to persuade Maskhadov to switch tactics. He added that he hopes that Maskhadov may now do so after Russian intelligence rounded up 50 of his relatives in retaliation for Maskhadov's imputed complicity in the Beslan hostage taking.
Basaev responded in some detail to his interviewer's observation that in video footage of the 21-22 June raid on Interior Ministry facilities in Ingushetia Basaev appeared healthy and had no apparent problems in moving freely despite having had one leg amputated in the aftermath of the Chechen retreat from Grozny in February 2000. Basaev boasted that in contrast to the months following that retreat, when he admitted having wept at his own weakness, he has fully recovered from his wounds, and is now capable of walking up to 50 kilometers a night. He said he treats his wounds with pure honey, which he said is also efficacious in cases of poisoning together with a caraway concoction (he claimed that he has survived eight attempts to poison him over the past five years), while he doses himself with tetracycline hydrochloride together with the medication "Doctor Mom" for chills and flu. He said he never resorts to painkillers as "thanks be to Allah, I have a very high pain threshold."
Basaev denied that he personally receives much financial support from abroad, explaining that after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. "people are afraid" to give him donations and he is reluctant to ask for money. But he said other field commanders have their own sources of foreign funding, and that his men regularly seize funds destined for the pro-Moscow Chechen government. He repeated his earlier denials of any links with Osama bin Laden and also denied that his men include numerous foreign mercenaries. He claimed that "in my database I have extensive lists of people from all over the world who want to participate in the jihad in Chechnya, tens and hundreds of thousands of them, and not all Muslims." But, Basaev continued, he automatically rejects all such offers as "we have quite enough volunteers in Chechnya." He did not, however, shed any light on the claim by one young participant in the June raids in Ingushetia that hundreds of young Ingush, alienated by corruption and the routine kidnapping of young men by the FSB in Ingushetia, are flocking to fight under his banner.
Basaev praised the professionalism of his fighters, saying that they "are self-sufficient, fight independently [one detachment of another], every man in his place, you do not need to teach them anything." He said that he issues orders in writing, and does not need to confer personally with lower-level commanders more than once or twice a year. (In March 2003, Russian media quoted what were said to be excerpts from intercepted letters from Basaev to field commanders subordinate to him. Basaev personally convened a council of war on the eve of the raids on Ingushetia, according to kavkaz-center.com on 18 June.) He even claimed that he spent only two weeks in Chechnya during the whole of last year, but did not say where he spent the rest of the time.
Basaev categorically denied that his men have used Georgia's Pankisi Gorge as a base, explaining that "there are better conditions to relax in Chechnya than in impoverished Georgia, and if you need medical treatment it's better and cheaper in Russia."
Asked how he has managed to evade capture by the Russians for so long, Basaev explained that he has 20 secret hideaways in Chechnya, each furnished with enough provisions and supplies to last 20 men for two weeks. But the most important factor, he claimed, is the strong support he enjoys from the population of Chechnya and other North Caucasus republics. He claimed that last year when he was badly wounded a police colonel in Kabardino-Balkaria, "who was not even a practicing Muslim," sheltered him for one week. All Russian Muslims, Basaev added, have an obligation to acknowledge his leadership or that of Maskhadov and contribute materially to the jihad. But pro-Moscow Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Dzhabrailov rejected outright Basaev's claim to enjoy the support of the Chechen population. "I cannot speak on behalf of the population of other North Caucasus republics, but I can say on behalf of the Chechens: nobody will help Basaev because he is a bandit, criminal, and murderer and endangers the lives of innocent people," "Kommersant-Daily" quoted Dzhabrailov as saying on 1 November. Dzhabrailov declined, however, to comment on Basaev's other claims, saying only "today anything is possible. I can neither acknowledge or refute the information contained in this interview." (Liz Fuller)
Putin has begun the squeeze and is returning Russia to strong central control and away from democrtic rule.
In the not to distant future I envision the gulags for those who stand in his way...mafia dons included.
The Russian mafia is by far a secondary problem to the world wide Muslim threat.
Basaev worked for the GRU, not some Muslim terrorist organization.
The GRU stirred up Muslims and armed them in Abkazia againsts Georgian Christians.
I think there was a government behind these "Muslim" uprisings at first.
The problem is, sometimes you start something you can't stop.
The mafia/weapons dealers/intelligence services make the terrorism possible because they have the weapons, fake id, logistics, transportation, etc.
The terrorists drove up to Beslan school in an army truck.
Thanks. I get my information from www.rferl.org
Thanks. I get my information from www.rferl.org
Neither in this [September] speech nor in other statements has Putin acknowledged a connection between Beslan and the long-running war in Chechnya. Instead, he has focused on "international terrorism" and terrorism's "supporters abroad" as the key to understanding the tragedy. However, practically no one outside Putin's administration doubts that the roots of Beslan lie in the Kremlin's policies and tactics in Chechnya. There are also few doubts that the Chechen war is consolidating international terrorism in Russia the same way that the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan activated international Muslim guerrillas.
The terrorists drove up to Beslan school.....
Suggest these child killers be more correctly identified as follows: The Muslims drove up to Beslan school........
Using the word "terrorist" to identify these barbarians has become politically correct here in America.
I was incorrect in my last to you...should have read: Muslim terrorists.....not just Muslim...wife corrected.
I don't go for communists, but Zyuganov often tells the truth.
Communist Party leader Gennadii Zyuganov posted a... statement on the party's website (http://www.kprf.ru) on 25 June. "Although we have a large military formation and special-services presence in the region, all of a sudden a gang of fighters appears and kills the leadership [of local law enforcement organs]," Zyuganov wrote. "This means that intelligence and the [security] services are working very badly."
Military journalist Vladislav Shurygin went a step further, telling "Komsomolskaya pravda" that such successes indicate that Chechen fighters have agents working within the Russian security services.
I want to point out that it is not me who is saying that the security services and the terrorists are intertwined--a Russian military journalist is writing this.
They sell them weapons. They transport them in trucks, planes, and other military transport. Gangsters use the military to sell weapons to the terrorists I think.
Why don't you go to www.rferl.org and read about Chechnya.
The have a search feature and also a special section on Chechnya.
The Russians have also been using terrorist tactics against Chechen civilians. They are called anti-terrorists.
They murder childen, rape women and girls. These are not isolated incidents by individual soldiers.
A moderate Muslim, Maskhadov was elected in Chechnya. He was undermined by Basaev, who may have been working for the Russian military intelligence (as he had in the past) and who admits he was responsible for Beslan.
Maskhadov does fight the Russians, but he doesn't use terrorist tactics against civilians. He has denounced Basaev.
What are they trying to hide?
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2004/09/5-NOT/not-220904.asp#343564
PUTIN'S 'MANAGED' INVESTIGATION INTO BESLAN
By Robert Coalson
Shortly after the 4 September conclusion of the tragic school hostage taking in Beslan, North Ossetia, President Vladimir Putin said that there would be no public investigation into the incident. Speaking to Western journalists and academics on 6 September, Putin said that he would conduct an internal probe into the matter. He added that if the Duma looked into it, the investigation would become "a political show" and "would not be very effective," "The Guardian" reported the next day.
A few days later, however, a "political show" of a different sort got under way, Kremlin critics say. Putin held a televised meeting on 10 September with Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov, in which the latter informed him that the Federal Assembly intended to create an interparliamentary commission to probe the affair. Such televised meetings have become a prominent feature of Putin's post-Beslan management style: on 14 September, for instance, he held a stage-managed meeting with Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov in which the prime minister "informed" him that Gazprom should be allowed to purchase state oil company Rosneft.
As the cameras rolled, Putin told Mironov on 10 September that "we are all interested in getting a complete and objective picture of the tragic events," Russian media reported. Putin further said he would order all executive-branch agencies to cooperate with the legislature's investigation. Although Putin's apparent volte face might have been prompted by the negative reaction in Russia and the West to his statement rejecting an independent inquiry, no one expected that the meeting with Mironov signaled a real change of heart or strategy.
On 20 September, the Federation Council held a closed-door session during which the composition of the investigating commission was determined. A few days earlier, council Deputy Chairman Aleksandr Torshin told RIA-Novosti that the commission's schedule had largely been determined, even though its membership had not been named. Torshin emphasized that the legislation governing such commissions is incomplete and that the commission would have no authority to compel senior officials to testify. He added, though, that it might even ask Putin himself to answer questions.
During its 20 September meeting, the Federation Council decided that the commission would comprise 11 council members and 10 Duma deputies and would be headed by Torshin. The 11 council members are: Torshin, Defense and Security Committee member Aleksei Aleksandrov, Constitutional Law Committee Deputy Chairman Leonid Bindar, Industry Committee Deputy Chairman Erik Bugulov, Economy Committee First Deputy Chairman Vladimir Gusev, Legal and Judicial Affairs Committee member Rudik Iskuzhin, Audit Chamber Cooperation Commission Deputy Chairman Yurii Kovalev, Federation Council Affairs Commission Chairman Vladimir Kulakov, CIS Affairs Committee member Oleg Panteleev, Defense Committee Deputy Chairman Vyacheslav Popov, and Constitutional Law Committee Chairman Valerii Fedorov.
The 10 Duma members are expected to be named on 25 September. Seven will represent Unified Russia, with one each from the Communist Party, Motherland, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. "Vremya novostei" and "Nezavisimaya gazeta" noted on 21 September that there will most likely be no independent deputies on the commission, even though independent Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov was the first to call for an independent probe.
Mironov told "Vremya novostei" that commission members were selected in part on the basis of their contacts with the secret services. "People selected for the commission are ones who have a high level of access," Mironov said. The paper predicted that the Duma representatives would be dominated by Unified Russia loyalists and former security-service figures -- "people who won't ask 'unnecessary' questions."
At a press conference announcing the commission, Mironov stressed that it will not conduct a public investigation. "Commission members will not have the right to publicize information about the progress of the investigation or to comment on it except at official press conferences sanctioned by the commission chairman," Mironov said, according to km.ru and other Russian media. Mironov said the commission will prepare a final report, but refused to say whether that report will be made public. "Kommersant-Daily" reported on 21 September that Mironov has also ordered that commission members not be allowed to discuss the commission's work without his permission even after the probe is completed.
The semi-formed commission began work immediately and arrived on 21 September in North Ossetia to begin five days of collecting testimony from local witnesses and officials. However, few analysts expressed confidence that the commission would ever produce definitive answers to lingering questions about the Beslan events, including the identities of the hostage takers, the exact numbers of hostages and victims, what the government's plans were for either negotiating with the terrorists or storming the building, and how former Ingushetian President Ruslan Aushev was able to negotiate with the hostage takers and to secure the release of 26 of the hostages.
"It will be impossible to have any confidence in this commission and its conclusions," Ryzhkov told "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 21 September, "because Unified Russia is compromised by the same authorities who allowed such failures in the North Caucasus and, in particular, in Beslan."
I think there is a lot of truth in that.
The army people and secret services can make a lot of money because nobody can look at what they are up to.
If there is a terrorist problem, their agencies can get more money.
For the big guys, this may be about money. Little people are drawn in when their relatives are killed and they become so sick of the injustice that they go beserk.
Putin doesn't have the guts to trust people with the truth.
The Russians have had several attempts at quelling their breakaway republic.
Three "conflicts" ago the Russians went in with a rag-tag army and were essentially defeated (Yelsin's era)
next the Russians tried a scorched earth policy with a better diciplined army and that ended most of the conflict....for a time.
This latest round of Muslim terrorism has given the Russians the clear opportunity for genocide...and my guess is that Putin will ultimately institute deportation to Siberia and all the other nicities that the Russians do so well. They will solve the problem and not worry about collateral damage.
But the point remains, it is Muslim terrorism that is western civilizations greatest enemy....nothing else even comes close.
The Russian policies/corruption have been fuel on the fire.
I think if Putin is smart he will bring back Maskhadov.
Because of the Russian policies in Chechnya--including using terrorist tactics on the population--the terrorists are able to recruit angry people.
Maskhadov might be able to get this under control.
Perhaps. But that is just a detail in the larger Muslim attack on civilization that is ongoing around the world.
I don't think any reasonable person can say that there is no relationship between the Muslim murders of people in Bali, the Phillipines, America, Africa, school children in Russia, the mid-East etc are not connected.
It is a war between Muslims and those who are not Muslims.
Al Qaeda would like us to preach this.
In fact, Muslims are the main victims of Islamic terrorists.
The former head of the CIA, Mr. Tenet, described meeting in a Middle Eastern country a foreigner who worked as an American agent and played an instrumental role in 2003 in leading the C.I.A. in Pakistan to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, who is now being held in a secret location abroad.
"He bought his first suit and tie to meet me," Mr. Tenet said of the agent. He said he had asked the man "why he helped us, and put his life on the line," and was told, "I want my children free of these madmen who destroy our religion and kill innocent people."
Is RFE/RL your only source?
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