Putin: Complicit West harbours terrorists
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-18 08:55
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Friday accused the West of harbouring Chechen terrorists, speaking hours after rebel leader Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the Beslan school massacre.
In a statement likely to further chill Russia's cooling relations with Europe and the United States, Putin said the West's "patronising and indulgent attitude to the murderers amounts to complicity in terror".
His remarks came the day after Moscow summoned Britain's charge d'affairs, Stephen Wordsworth, to the Russian foreign ministry to hear complaints about London's decision to grant asylum to a Chechen politician and an exiled Russian tycoon.
Wordsworth was told that the men, Chechen rebel spokesman Akhmed Zakayev and tycoon Boris Berezovsky, should be stopped from making "slanderous statements".
Meanwhile, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has criticised Moscow for failing to provide accurate coverage of the Beslan siege and accused the government of opening a "credibility gap" between the state, media and the people.
A day of dramatic announcements began with the statement, via a rebel website, that Chechen guerrilla leader Basayev was finally accepting responsibility for the Beslan attack, saying a unit named Riyadus-Salikhin carried out the operation.
But Basayev insisted it was government forces, not his rebels, that were responsible for the massacre two weeks ago that has left 326 dead and another 100 people missing.
"A terrible tragedy occurred in the city of Beslan. The Kremlin vampire destroyed and wounded 1,000 children and adults," said the Basayev statement.
He repeated an earlier offer of peace if the Kremlin would grant Chechnya independence, something Moscow has ruled out. "We can guarantee that all of Russia's Muslims would refrain from armed methods of struggle against the Russian Federation, at least for ten to 15 years," said the statement.
The United States Friday denounced Basayev's admission. The US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, said: "He has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is inhuman."
Basayev's comments have also ended speculation that the Beslan slaughter might trigger a pause in fighting, with the rebel leader, Russia's most wanted man, saying more attacks would follow.
"We are not bound by any circumstances, or to anybody, and we will continue to fight as is convenient and advantageous to us, and by our rules," he said.
What sort of attacks those rules allow is unclear, but Russia has been battered by a violent summer of attacks that its security forces have been powerless to prevent.
Putin, meanwhile, accused the West of hypocrisy by fighting against Osama bin Laden while at the same time giving sanctuary to Chechen rebels. "We faced double standards in the attitude towards terrorism," he said.
Putin warned that attempts to negotiate with Chechen separatists were as dangerous as the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the years before World War Two.
"I urge you to remember the lessons of history, the amicable deal [with Adolf Hitler] in Munich in 1938," he said. "Any surrender leads to them widening their demands and makes losses worse."
Putin's comments are likely to put further distance between Russia and the West, which has repeatedly criticised Russia for human rights violations in Chechnya.
Britain is in the firing line because of its decision to give Berezovsky and Zakayev asylum.
Russia regards Zakayev as a terrorist, and wants Berezovsky, a former television mogul and power-broker, to return to Russia to face fraud investigators.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-09/18/content_375631.htm
FBI's Anti-Terror 'October Plan'
Plan Calls For "Aggressive - Even Obvious - Surveillance" Techniques
Sep 17, 2004 8:49 pm US/Mountain
WASHINGTON (CBS) Convinced that al Qaeda is still determined to disrupt the U.S. fall elections by an attack on the homeland, FBI officials here are preparing a massive counter-offensive of interrogations, surveillance and possible detentions they hope will disrupt the terrorist plans, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart.
FBI field offices and Homeland Security agencies will be advised of "extraordinary measures" that will go into place "beginning the first week of October through the elections."
An internal e-mail advisory to supervisory agents this week from the FBI's "'04 Threat Task Force" said the purpose of the counter-offensive is "to foster the impression that law enforcement is focused on individuals who may be a threat."
Specifically, the plan calls for "aggressive - even obvious - surveillance" techniques to be used on a short list of people suspected of being terrorist sympathizers, but who have not committed a crime. Other "persons of interest," including their family members, may also be brought in for questioning, one source said.
All recent truck thefts, chemical thefts and suspicious cargo truck rentals will also be reviewed as part of the plan. Mosques will be revisited and members asked whether they've observed any suspicious behavior.
Throwing hundreds of agents on the street and conducting invasive surveillance has become a standard post-9/11 tactic for the bureau, which hopes at a minimum to force terrorists go back into hiding and re-think their plan.
Some officials believe it was just such tactics that foiled the remainder of al Qaeda's New Year's bomb plot in January 2000 after agents arrested one operative, Ahmed Ressam, in Port Angeles, Wash., with a car trunk full of explosive material.
The bureau also knows it can expect to be criticized for the strategy if it goes too far. One element of the plan calls for addressing what some officials fears could be a wave of protests from Arab-Americans and civil libertarians once the so-called "October Plan" kicks off.
http://news4colorado.com/topstories/topstories_story_261212240.html
Well, on one hand, this is simple poetic justice, their own sins are coming back to visit them after decades of supporting marxist terrorists all over the world. But on the other hand, this is truly chilling. The Ivans don't play games when their blood is up. Ask the nazis.
Some of Russia's anger could rightfully be directed at the murky policies of the US and EU during the Clinton years. During those years we sheltered moslems in the former Yugoslavia, ignoring the development of islamic terrorism, thinking that the prevention of a repressive regime would pacify the region and that these proto-terrorists should be protected. Now I am seeing them for what they are - terrorists. Notice how islamic terror is protected in Kosovo and other parts of the world. This is also reflected in France & Germany's appeasement / resistance policies. And in some ways our State Dept.'s attitude in overwhelming favor of the Palestanians over the Israelis.