U.S. Calls Bomb Blast in Russia an 'Atrocity' (asks Russia not to seek military solution??)

Reuters via Yahoo! ^ | Thu May 9, 5:10 PM ET | Elaine Monaghan

[Spar]

U.S. Calls Bomb Blast in Russia an 'Atrocity'

Thu May 9, 5:10 PM ET

By Elaine Monaghan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States condemned as an "atrocity" a blast near the Russian region of Chechnya (news - web sites) on Thursday that killed at least 34 people, including 12 children, saying it looked like terrorism but declining to blame the attack on Chechen separatist guerrillas.

"We were saddened to learn of the bomb blast," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a news briefing after the attack that also injured more than 150 people and scattered bodies where a Russian Victory Day parade had been taking place.

"Many of the victims were elderly and were children. Our sincere condolences go out to the Russian people and the victims' families," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) blamed the attack in the Caspian Sea port of Kaspiisk on "terrorists," the usual Kremlin term to describe separatist Chechen rebels.

Boucher drew no link with Moscow's battle in the north Caucasus region of Chechnya, the scene of two conflicts between separatists and Russian forces since the 1990s and bordering the region of Dagestan where the blast occurred.

"We strongly condemn this cowardly and violent act. We look forward to seeing the perpetrators of these attacks brought to justice," Boucher said.

"I don't think at this point we have a sense of who's responsible for committing this atrocity. I have to say it looks like terrorism plain and simple, and the first issue therefore is to find, identify and punish the perpetrators," he added.

Boucher said U.S. views on Chechnya, which are that Moscow should seek a political settlement to the conflict and that there is no military solution, were unchanged.

U.S.-Russian relations have flourished since attacks by Islamic militant followers of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon (news - web sites) near Washington on Sept. 11 that killed about 3,000 people.

President Bush (news - web sites) is due to visit Russia this month for summit talks with Putin.

Both men have made fighting terrorism a hallmark of their presidencies. Putin has emphasized alleged links between some of the Chechen guerrillas and bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

The State Department revived references to the alleged connections after Sept. 11 in an apparent reward to Putin, the first foreign leader to reach Bush after the U.S. attacks.

Putin, drawing parallels with his people's suffering in a series of apartment-building bombings that Moscow blamed on Chechens, announced an interest in political talks shortly afterward, although they have come to nothing.

Concerned by the scale of Russia's campaigns in which thousands of civilians have been killed and the Chechen capital, Grozny, virtually reduced to rubble, Washington has tried to encourage Putin to differentiate between terrorism and Chechens who seek independence for their mountainous, mainly Muslim region.

[MarMema]

Why were the FSB planting a bomb in an apartment building in Ryazan in 1999 during the Moscow bombings?

Oh you mean the film produced by Boris Berezovsky , the one who financed the chechen terrorists with his mafia money?
Gee, I wonder what motives he could possibly have to discredit Putin, who was going after his criminal activities and planning to kick butt in chechnya where Boris had his fellow terrorist buddies stashed?

You should find some believeable, non-criminal sources to put your faith in.

[MarMema]

From the thread linked above -

"Last summer, Berezovsky predicted that Putin would not survive until the end of his term as president. Moreover, he took active measures to make that prediction come true. He planned to form an opposition political party, and through grants to dozens of regional NGOs he is creating a local network. In autumn, a series of sensational exposes of secret services and alleged government plans to ban circulation of U.S. dollars in Russia ran in newspapers he either controls or has influence over. Friendly governors reportedly visit him on a regular basis in Paris. Media analyst Yelena Rykovtseva in early October wrote in Russia Journal that various sources-- from newspapers to anonymous experts--assessed his anti-Putin drive to cost more than $150 million."

More reasons to dislike Boris. He either is anti-US or was in cahoots with the terrorists when he ran his famous "trade in your US dollars campaign".

[MarMema]

more on Boris

"Izvestia on Wednesday played on a phrase in Berezovsky's letter - "one cannot change the rules of the game after it has started" - saying that Berezovsky, who considers himself to be Putin's political "father," was trying to put the brakes on a president who had made his first move independently of "the family," a powerful group of Kremiln insiders including Be re zovsky."

Putin isn't letting himself be run by former mafia heads but instead is trying to do a good job for his country.

[David Hunter]

I cannot even begin to imagine how you can use logic, to suspect that the FSB even NEEDS to manufacture bomb incidents to make the Russians dislike the chechens. Most Russians, but then you wouldn't know this since you have never even been there, already KNOW about chechnya.

I am well aware that most Russians hate the Chechens. But they suffered heavy casualties during the 1994-96 war, and the banditry, but especially the Moscow bombings were what got the public behind the second Chechen war.

Also please note the following quote from here:

'Matt Ivens, editor of the Moscow Times, thought the same: ‘Yeltsin had been through a couple of prime ministers and each time he dropped them he made it clear that it had something to do with elections.

By the end he's picking Vladimir Putin. No one has ever heard of Putin, except very careful watchers of politics or people from St. Petersberg. He's announcing "this is my successor, this is a man who can run the country" and there is widespread ridicule. All the newspapers in town including ours said, there's no way this guy could win an election, unless something really extraordinary is going to happen.’

The Moscow bombs were the extraordinary thing.

Putin struck out in the immediate aftermath of the bombs: ‘Those that have done this don't deserve to be called animals. They are worse … they are mad beasts and they should be treated as such.’

His poll ratings soared, and he struck again: ‘we will waste them. Even when they are on the bog.’ This was pure gangsterese, but it went down a treat with the Russian public.'

Also this quote:

'The credibility of the FSB version of events hangs on the notion of a training exercise. Why use real hexogen and a real detonator in a dummy bomb? If was just a training exercise, why turn out the residents of the block of flats for a sleepless night? And why should the Ryazan bomb squad be so concerned about a dummy detonator that they took a photograph of it?

The concern of locals deepened when the newspaper Novaya Gazeta alleged that sacks of hexogen were found at a military base in Ryazan. The paper reported that a paratrooper on guards duty at a weapons warehouse outside the city discovered piles of sacks labelled sugar. He opened one of the bags and tried to use the white powder to sweeten his tea, only to recoil at the taste. An explosives expert called in to examine the bags declared that they contained hexogen.

Putin has declared: ‘there is nobody in the Russian special services capable of committing such a crime against our people. It is immoral even to consider such a possibility. In fact, this is nothing but an element of the information war against Russia.’

His problem is that the residents of the Ryazan block of flats, among others, do not believe his word or the word of the FSB on the matter.'

It's so incredibly stupid that you would even think the FSB was planting things to blow up Russians, when the chechen scum convict themselves - in their videotapes and on TV. And in person in some parts of Russia as well.

As I said the Russians have always hated Chechens and not without reason. However, it takes a particularly nasty incident to get people behind a war. For example, the US have had a problem with Bin Laden and the Shariah muslim extremists for years, but it was the terrible events of September the 11th that got America ready to commit ground troops to attack the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

It required a similar set of atrocities to get the Russians to put aside their worries about another bloody Chechen war. Invading Dagestan was one thing, but blowing up apartments in Moscow would just have been stupidity. By doing that the Chechens would have virtually guaranteed their own annihilation. I know that you will say the Chechens were allied to the al-Qaeda psychopaths, but there is this inconvenient evidence that points at the FSB and no evidence has been uncovered which points to the Chechens.

The Chechens lost everything they had gained from the first war. One Chechen view is this: ‘If we had wanted to bomb Moscow, we would have blown up the Kremlin or a nuclear power station. Why should we blow up a couple of blocks of flats?’ See an article about the evidence implicating the FSB in the Moscow bombings right here on Free Republic.

I agree that the Russians had a right to kick the Chechens out of Dagestan, since the Chechen government had aggressive imperialist policies then the Russians can also be forgiven for kicking them out of power. However, since the pro-Moscow Chechen puppet government was installed, the Russian army has continued to subjugate the Chechen population. Senior officials in the Pro-Moscow Chechen government actually resigned in July 2001, because of the mass torture, rape, looting and extrajudicial killings that the Russian army had been committing against the Chechen civilian population.

Parts that I have been to and helped people escape from - which is something that you too, could do, with all these supposedly humanitarian, altruistic desires of youth.

I do give money to organisations, including the Red Cross, SMSP, HRW and Amnesty International even though I earn less than $10,000 a year. I have also helped young Russian scientists find work in Britain because they are on the verge of giving up science completely because of the poor pay scientists receive in Russia.

[David Hunter]

Oh you mean the film produced by Boris Berezovsky , the one who financed the chechen terrorists with his mafia money? Gee, I wonder what motives he could possibly have to discredit Putin, who was going after his criminal activities and planning to kick butt in chechnya where Boris had his fellow terrorist buddies stashed?

Berezovsky isn't the only person to ask questions about the Ryazan bomb incident. Instead of attacking those who have brought up these questions, maybe you could actually try to answer the questions.

[Stavka2]

You think that it is rediculous to ban air guns under such pretense, but yet that whole article points out that all the UK gun bans were under the exact pretense. Why the protest now? Problem is, once you start taking away freedom, how and where do you stop?

[Stavka2]

No one has ever heard of Putin, except very careful watchers of politics or people from St. Petersberg. He's announcing "this is my successor, this is a man who can run the country" and there is widespread ridicule. All the newspapers in town including ours said, there's no way this guy could win an election, unless something really extraordinary is going to happen.’

Gee, sounds a lot like the American President Reagan...the same "experts" declared he was unelectable...same results in the end for the "experts". And as to why Putin is so popular...oh I don't know, the average growth rate has been around 6%, the might have something to do with it. Normalization and a cut in taxes and bureaocracy might be another.

[Stavka2]

Well, I think it was the British MI6 who launched mortors at Parliment and the various other bombings and not the IRA. The Brits just need a reason to beat up on the Irish and steal more of their land and lives, just like they've done for 600 years. Now prove me wrong.

[David Hunter]

You think that it is ridiculous to ban air guns under such pretense, but yet that whole article points out that all the UK gun bans were under the exact pretense.

The people misusing the air guns were children, who according to the law should not have access to them anyway. Therefore, instead of banning them the government should be trying to enforce the existing law.

The British government has always disliked people owning firearms and they have used the massacres to clamp down on them. It is not a liberal policy, it is an authoritarian policy. But since the people who committed the massacres owned their firearms legally then prohibition makes more sense than it does for air guns.

The widespread availability of firearms would be bound to increase the murder rate, so I still support firearm controls. Because there is no tradition of buying firearms for defence then I doubt that liberal gun laws would have many positive effects, apart from making it easy for criminals to arm themselves.

[MarMema]

Gee, sounds a lot like the American President Reagan.

So I guess next he will be telling me that President Bush was behind the attack here on 9-11. To boost his ratings of course.

[MarMema]

because of the mass torture, rape, looting and extrajudicial killings that the Russian army had been committing against the Chechen civilian population.

I don't believe there were all that many innocent chechen civilians. This is a typical victim game of the islamic groupies. If the wahabi sect were really so small and unimportant, why were they running the country? What was it, 40% voted for Basayev when he ran for president? He darn near was elected. So don't try to tell me any sad stories about chechen civilians.

[MarMema]

but blowing up apartments in Moscow would just have been stupidity

YES. That is correct. They are very stupid. They had support and they threw it down the toilet. They kidnapped children, aid workers and religious people. They tortured and killed them, and sent videos of themselves doing it to people. They put the heads of 4 britons/new zealanders on posts in public places after they cut them off, just as the deal to have them released was supposed to be final.

They flaunted to the world their brutality, even as their victims were the least dangerous in all of society and the most helpless.

Humanitarian groups and journalists who were on THEIR side in the issue, who were bringing them food and medical aid, were kidnapped,tortured, and beheaded right along with the enemies. Do you think this was a smart move on their part? It's not only that, but they enjoyed it. It was like those videos they show in mosques, where they supposedly worship God. They are sadists. You think they are like us, don't you? Human in some deep dark way. You are wrong. They are an accident of nature or the warriors of Satan, depending on your view.

Pure evil. Bloodthirsty. Sick. Demented.
Chechnya needs to be made into a parking lot. There comes a time when you can see that a people are so evil and sick that the world deserves to go on without them. That time is now. Thank God for Putin and what he and his men have sacrificed for the sake of the rest of the world.
I pray for the young Russian soldiers daily. It takes a particular courage to confront and be around that kind of evil, and I pray for them to have it. God Bless Them as they continue to rid the world of the evil in it.

[MarMema]

The severed heads of four Western hostages were discovered along a road Tuesday, more than two months after the men were seized by gunmen in the Chechen capital of Grozny.

The hostages -- Britons Peter Kennedy, Darren Hickey, and Rudolf Petschi, and New Zealand's Stanley Shaw -- were engineers working for Granger Telecom, a British telephone company.

Their heads were found about 25 miles (40 km) south of Grozny and were identified by a bodyguard. Chechen government officials at the scene said four bodies had been found as well, but gave no further details.

In Grozny, Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov said the slayings were a major blow to Chechnya and its efforts to gain international recognition of its independence effort.

The four men found dead Tuesday had been living in an armed complex as guests of the Chechen separatist government while they worked to install phone lines across the breakaway Russian province. A spokesman for Granger Telecom in Britain said, "We have heard the reports and are obviously investigating, but there is nothing we can say at this stage."

Chechen authorities said they had several suspects in the abduction, but have failed to make any progress.

[MarMema]

I know that you will say the Chechens were allied to the al-Qaeda psychopaths

Psychopath is a very good word for you to use. Just ask yourself, what *kind* of people will behead four innocent men who are in your country to help it, for 30 million instead of 10 million.

UK workers beheaded on Bin Laden's orders
BBC,By Robert Jaques [20-11-2001]

Terror king paid kidnappers $30m blood money to murder telco engineers

The world's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, paid $30m to have four British telco engineers beheaded in Chechnya, BBC's The Money Programme will reveal tomorrow.

The broadcast, entitled 'Kidnapped' and due to be shown on BBC2 at 7.30pm on Wednesday, shows that Bin Laden paid the blood money to the Islamic fundamentalist warlord, Arbi Barayev, who dealt with the terrorist through an Arab called Kattab.

According to Western intelligence sources, Kattab had been paid millions of dollars by Bin Laden to foment Islamic revolution in Chechnya.

Barayev, who had already amassed a personal fortune through kidnapping, snatched the engineers - Rudi Petschi, Peter Kennedy, Stan Shaw and Darren Hickey - from Chechnya's capital, Grozny. They had been working in the former Soviet Republic for UK firm Granger Telecom to repair the telecommunications infrastructure that had been ravaged by a two-year bloody war with Russia.

The technicians were beheaded some time between the 5th and 8th of December 1998, despite successful ransom negotiations.

The Money Programme unearthed Bin Laden's involvement by tracking down another Barayev hostage, Abdurakhman Adukhov, who was held with the engineers but later released. He told BBC investigators that he personally spoke to Barayev and asked him why he'd killed the Westerners.

The programme quoted Adukhov saying that Bin Laden offered the warlord $30m, whereas the ransom to return the men alive was only $10m. "According to Barayev, his Islamic faction would be paid more money if they murdered the men rather than freed them. The money would come from Arab friends."

"It seems the money may have been part of a wider package to spread Islamic fundamentalism in the region so that Westerners would be scared away. Bin Laden and his allies would be given a freer hand," the programme added.

The BBC also interviewed another man kidnapped by the gang, Shak Sharukhanov, who confirmed that the decision to murder the Granger Telecom employees was made while ransom negotiations were still in progress.

[MarMema]

maybe you could actually try to answer the questions.

Answering the questions as you request means I would have to believe that a mafia head who admits to hating Putin's law and order reform, was later proved to be sending funds to chechen terrorists, funded a movie claiming that the Russian government blew up apartments to win support for a war and this movie was not about trying to discredit Putin.
Then I would have to somehow stretch into believing that a people notorious for blowing things up and stupidly demonizing themselves in the eyes of the world, were not behind the bombings in Russia claimed by Putin to be terrorist.
So after the aliens come down and kidnap me for a visit to another planet, maybe those things might appear reasonable. I'll get back to you.

[hinckley buzzard]

The State Department appears to be a bureaucratic enclave unto themselves and have been pro-Arab forever. And opposed to Israel since the beginning.

Truman in disgust at their institutional Arabism dismissed the diplo-pukes as "the striped-pants boys."

[David Hunter]

The severed heads of four Western hostages were discovered along a road Tuesday, more than two months after the men were seized by gunmen in the Chechen capital of Grozny.

There was a program about this on British TV last year. It has been suggested that the only people who wouldn't have wanted Grozny to have a mobile telephone network are the Russians. Due to the way the Chechen rebels had successfully used the electronic media to put out information during the last war. Therefore, it was suggested, that the FSB may have been behind the deaths of Peter Kennedy, Darren Hickey, Rudolf Petschi and Stanley Shaw. The resulting bad publicity would also have damaged the Chechen government.

However, I think that Chechen bandits are the most likely culprits. The question is were they just bandits, or were they also rebels who fought on behalf of the Chechen government?

I accept what you have said about Chechens sometimes biting the hand of friendship. I heard about a British girl who did voluntary service overseas. She spent several months in Chechnya working for Médecins Sans Frontières, but she was raped for her trouble.

The problem is, I don't like to extrapolate across the whole population. The Nazis used propaganda to paint the Jews as evil money grabbers in order to have an excuse to wipe them out. I dislike making generalisations about an entire nation on the basis of the actions of a group, even a large group of its people.

[David Hunter]

...funded a movie claiming that the Russian government blew up apartments to win support for a war and this movie was not about trying to discredit Putin.

Berezovsky didn't invent the events surrounding the Ryazan bombing incident. I realise that Berezovsky has ulterior motives to accuse the FSB of being involved in the Moscow bombings. However, the facts surrounding the 'exercise' at Ryazan are suspicious even without Berezovsky highlighting them.

[Stavka2]

Considering that the Russian airforce sent missiles down the cell phone signals of several leaders, I'd say just the opposite...give them all cell phones. So what other great conspiracy theories have you got? And by the way, you have yet to prove me wrong that the bombings in England were not the work of the Queen's government as an excuse to steal Irish land. I don't think that there is anything more to the IRA then a political party...all the violence is strictly ethnic cleansing and forced conversion by the British.