Posted on 08/07/2003 1:10:19 PM PDT by presidio9
Zulikhan Yelikhadzhiyeva lived much of her short life surrounded by the horrors of the two wars in Chechnya, but she suffered comparatively little.
She lived in a cloistered brick house in this small Chechen village, which has largely escaped war's worst ravages. She studied at the village's medical vocational school and interned at its local clinic.
Advertisement
Little seems to explain why a month ago, accompanied by another woman, she approached the entrance to a music festival in Moscow and blew herself up. The blast killed only her, but the other woman detonated her own suicide bomb moments later, killing at least 16 people. Ms. Yelikhadzhiyeva was 20.
In the last four months, seven suicide attacks, all but one of them carried out by women, have spread fear across Russia, killing 165 people in all and setting in motion a new dynamic in the four-year-old war against Chechen secessionists.
Russian news media, echoing officials, have dubbed the perpetrators "black widows," women prepared to kill and to die to avenge the deaths of fathers, husbands, brothers and sons at the hands of Russian troops in the current war or the one in the 1990's.
But Ms. Yelikhadzhiyeva — identified, officials said, by a passport found at the scene — does not fit such a description. Here in Chechnya, truth is elusive and what, precisely, drives these women, and how they are recruited, seem murky. Ms. Yelikhadzhiyeva had no dead father, husband, brother or son to motivate her.
The suicide attacks by women have particularly unnerved the Russian authorities, in part because Chechen women had been able to move more freely than Chechen men, who are routinely harassed by Russia's police and security services.
The only recent attack not carried out by a woman was the truck bombing of a military hospital in Mozdok on Friday, which left 50 dead at last count.
In Ms. Yelikhadzhiyeva's case, neither the authorities nor those who knew her could say exactly what compelled her to blow herself up. In February she disappeared in circumstances that remain mysterious.
Her grandmother, Zuda Khasukhanova, said she had been kidnapped on the orders of her half-brother. The authorities said she joined one of Chechnya's rebel groups.
She had not married. According to her grandmother and a neighbor who knew her all her life, she displayed little interest in the radical Islamic ideology that has increasingly characterized Chechnya's separatist fighters. She planned to continue studying medicine.
"We had such a good family," Ms. Khasukhanova said in an interview, punctuated with tears, in the house where she had lived with her granddaughter. "She was like an angel."
Imran Yezhiyev, the head of the Society of Chechen-Russian Friendship, an advocacy group in the region of Ingushetia, on Chechnya's western boundary, said in a telephone interview that the suicide attacks were an inevitable response to the "most crude, the most terrible" crimes Russian forces had committed against Chechen civilians during the war.
"They are desperate because they see no prospect of this horrible war ending," he said of the suicide bombers.
At the same time, though, he said he and other elders had denounced the tactic as anathema to Chechen traditions of honor.
Most Chechens, in fact, have not embraced a cult of martyrdom, as have, for example, Palestinian suicide bombers in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In Kurchaloi there are no posters or graffiti celebrating Ms. Yelikhadzhiyeva's suicide. Those interviewed here in Chechnya professed shock and horror.
"How can a person who kills somebody get to heaven?" said her grandmother, who is 63. "It's horrible what's going on in Chechnya right now."
Russian officials, who bristle at any suggestion that abuses by Russian forces could have inspired any of the suicide attacks, have blamed the influence of Islamic fundamentalists, including foreign groups associated with international terrorism.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well, then maybe the Russians should have supported more aggressive measures by the Israelis to counteract suicide bombers. The Chechens aren't operating in a vacuum.
ML/NJ
1991 900,000 Chechins 120 million Russians in Russia...now, less then 700,000 Chechins. Till now breeding females spared...so only one male need live to impregnate many women and infest world with future terrorist scum. Now girl, 20, blow self up....that 3-4 Chechins who never born...see Chechins don't breed fast like arab rats, these mountain turds not so fast....but for every little biatch who blow self up, that like prize of 3-4 future dead Chechins. Also this remove restraint from shooting suspected female so even fewer future Chechin....if Chechin keep this up in 20 years maybe 200,000 Chechin left? They war self from existence.
Wrong, what muslim turd mean, they are desperate because they see no prospect of winning and have greater Taliban republic. To damned bad.
if Chechin keep this up in 20 years maybe 200,000 Chechin left? They war self from existence.
If it weren't that they're taking other casualties along with them, I could go along with your math. But that is but one of the two reasons I disagree with your cool mathmatical analysis, attractive as it appears at first glance. There are likely others.
Maybe we've been too quick to condemn genocide as a solution to such problems. But for now, enforcing a 1KM zone against the approach of any Chechnyans would be a good start.
-archy-/-
She is not only a possible if unlikely weapon, but very probably a tempting target as well. I hope she has a competent security detail aware of the possibility of her being so targeted by the muslum fanatics.
-archy-/-
Chechins had 3 years independece...during time, they kidnap 1,500 people for ransom and slavery. They bomb 3 apartment building. They butcher and drive out remaining christians, including killing several US preachers. They butcher Red Cross mission. Kill 4 British Telecom workers. Kidnap & kill Russian general on diplomat mission. Run heroine, run white slave trade, and become safe heaven for Islamic jihaders...and this as independents...but final straw was when the Chechin Defense Minister Baseyov led invasion of neighboring Daghistan to create greater Taliban Republic of North Caucuses. When locals refused offer, they butcher 3 whole villages...all video taped too. So I not know where you get your ideas...NYT? But you are way off.
Ask yourself why so many dead Chechins in Afghanistan and Chechins sit in Cuba now? Ask self why dead Chechins in Palistine and in Iraq?
First thing Chechins do is drive out Christian Cossaks from N. Chechin plain, where no Chechins ever lived...area added to official Chechnya by Soviet scum...that area always Russian Christian Cossaks. Then they drive out Georgians, other Russians, Jews and Armenians...total 400,000 peoples from original population in area of 1,200,000...out of 800,000 actual Chechins, almost half ran into Russia to get away from own warlords.
Your poor Chechins on Easter 1994 took all Russian prisoners, cut off thumb and first 2 fingers on right hand (for crossing) and crucified victems, left bodies on top of buildings as show.
You have not clue what you talk of. Chechins may now be Wahhabi but they always murderous...that why 22 ethnic groups in Daghistan (all moslem) dispise Chechins and all other groups too....they never have more industry then slavery...which is why Russia went in in first place....1700's Chechin slave raids...they selling to Khanite of Khiva Russian women.
No other society infiltrated has embraced it with such an overwhelming degree of barbarism and cruelty. The chechens outdo most of the barbaric societies ever on this planet. Had to be something there to begin with... and there was. This was a culture which promoted a warrior mentality far before the Wahabbis came to town. Their childrens books are about great men who kill a lot of other men. Not many places in our lifetime have run a human slave market in the capitol city with such success as the chechens. And right next door sold videos of men having their throats slit with such fervor.
Russia would do us all a favor by eliminating this race of people from the earth. Blood and guts is what they live for, and they enjoy inflicting terror on others. They make Hussein look like a peacenik.
Last thing I ran across on the internet was a story about some street chechens who gutted a 5 month old infant in front of the mom for fun.
Last time kavkaz was up they were sporting a few choice pics to share - one of a soldier who had just been castrated with his pants around his knees and blood all over the place. And some body parts of Russian soldiers they had killed, a liver or something.
The chechens give one pause to use the word "human" in describing them. Spare me your naivete.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.