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

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.

And, I think you are seeing the wrong side as victims in this issue. It is the Russians who have suffered more and who actually pulled out after some humiliating defeats. People tend to think that big bad Russia is being mean to little old chechnya. In reality it is the absolute impossibility of going up against terrorists who have not one shred of personal conscience and enjoy barbaric acts as we enjoy a nice meal, which makes it so very difficult for Russia to continue in this war.
The Russians, by nature and culture a gentle, sacrifical, generous people( see my profile), have struggled to face an enemy so unlike them that they hardly know what actions to take. It is far more reasonable to think, as this Briton seems to, that the men in charge were replaced with Putin by Yeltsin after those men failed to rescue ill people in a hospital taken hostage by Basayev, bumbled a rescue attempt in which sick, hospitalized, people were killed. Right on the heels of this, the chechens were able to achieve the massacre of the Russians in Grozny against incredible odds. It is far more believeable that the Russians were simply fed up with terrorists coming into their country and taking the weakest civilians as hostages, making them look foolish in the war efforts that followed. So when Yeltsin looked around and suggested a new man step up to the plate, and this man promised to do the job, Russians were more than pleased at the idea of being rid of the vermin on their border. Well before the videos were shown on Russian TV, which by the way, I am in complete support of, and think they should also do here. No doubt a socialist like yourself would prefer to be protected from the truths of life by your government....

At any rate, you cannot suggest that the hospital hostage thing highlighted below by Basayev was done by the FSB in secret. And since this piece was written it is said that the Dagestanis have completely turned around and now detest the chechens themselves. Yet another example of how the chechens have come to be hated by almost any other population which has contact with them over a period of time.

Be sure to take note of the leader who was nearly elected by these people, the one who wanted video taken of his own amputation. These are a barbaric people, for the most part, who support the deaths and kidnapping of the weakest in society to bring about their dream of an islamic state. They are no different from those cheering in the streets as Americans plunged to their deaths afire, or from those strapping bomb belts on their toddlers for the cameras, or from those who stone to death a woman because she lifted her veil in public or looked at a man on the street. They are as much a threat to you and people you love as they are to the Russian people. In time you may come to understand this, God help you and all of us.

SHAMIL BASEYEV, CHECHEN FIELD COMMANDER: RUSSIA’S MOST WANTED MAN
Dr. Brian Williams

Russia has accused Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev of not only invading the Russian republic of Dagestan, but of masterminding a bombing campaign in Russia in fall of 1999. One of the stated aims of the recent Russian campaign in Chechnya is to destroy Basayev and his militia and end the rule of warlords in the self proclaimed Chechen state of Ichkeria. Russia claims its latest invasion of Chechnya is a defensive action to defend its borders from Chechen 'terrorists'. Bashayev, who had his foot blown off by a land mine, considers himself a modern incarnation of the legendary Caucasian mountain warrior/raiders ("abreks") and vows to continue the struggle against the Russians. There is every reason to believe that he will lead a determined partisan war against the Russian forces in Chechnya, a war that Russia has little hope of "winning."

BACKGROUND: Shamil Basayev began his career as a fighter in 1992 when he joined the secessionist Abkhaz fighting for independence against the majority Georgians. Basayev's "Abkhaz Battalion" was responsible for the subsequent Abkhaz defeat of the Georgians. When the Russians invaded Chechnya in 1994, Basayev played a key role in the Chechen fighters destruction of Russian forces in Grozny on New Years Eve 1994-5. In June 1995, Basayev led a unit of 150 fighters into the neighboring Russian province of Stavropol where they seized a hospital and over 1,000 hostages. After two clumsy assaults by Russian special forces leading to the death of more than 100 hostages, Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin talked directly by phone with Basayev and agreed let the fighters return to Chechnya. A year later, Basayev participated in the surprise attack on Grozny that saw as many as 12,000 Russian troops encircled and trapped by the Chechen fighters. Yeltsin subsequently withdrew Russia's troops from Grozny.

In 1997, Basayev lost the Chechen presidential elections to Aslan Mashkadov, the moderate commander of the Chechen army. Basayev grew closer to Islamist fighters in the republic, such as the Saudi mujahideen, Habib abd-al Rahman, known by his nom de guerre Emir (Commander) Khottab. Basayev developed romantic notions of uniting Chechnya with Dagestan the same way his legendary namesake Imam Shamil had done in the first half of the 19th century. While not a Wahhabi, Basayev who is a member of the Naqshbandi Sufi order allied himself with his self-proclaimed brother Emir Khottab. Russia's worst nightmares for the region appeared to becoming fulfilled: Dagestanis and Chechens were uniting under the green banner of anti-Russian, militant Islam. If Russia were to lose Dagestan, containing 70 percent of Russia's Caspian coastline and her only all year warm water port on the Caspian, it would be a strategic disaster for the Kremlin. With access to the Caspian Sea and control of Russia's oil pipelines from Azerbaijan, the Chechen state could go from being a failed proto-state, mafiocracy to a viable Islamic republic.

During the Chechen invasion of Dagestan, Boris Yeltsin fired his prime minister, Sergei Stepashin, and replaced him with Vladimir Putin. As a bloody wave of terrorist bombings swept Russia in September 1999 killing close to three hundred Russian civilians, Putin blamed Basayev and Khottab and placed a one million dollar bounty on Basayev's head, declaring him Russia's most wanted man. Putin then launched a "limited anti-terrorism" campaign against Chechnya in October of 1999 to destroy Chechen "terrorist formations" and create a cordon sanitaire in northern Chechnya. Basayev played a key role in the defence of Grozny but was seriously wounded during the Chechens' hellish retreat from the encircled city. The front of Basayev's right foot was blown off by a mine as the desperate rebel force of 3,000 broke through three layers of mines and clashed with the besieging Russian army of 100,000. The flamboyant Basayev had his foot amputated while a video camera rolled. Russian television showed Basayev calmly telling the surgeon, a dentist by training, to cut his mangled foot off.

IMPLICATIONS: Basayev is now recuperating from his wound. His leg has now been amputated up to the knee due to gangrene but he is still in charge of military operations in Chechnya's southern Vedeno and Argun Gorges. Forces under his command have launched suicide bombings, ambushes, and sniper attacks against the Russians since the retreat from Grozny. Khottab, whose forces wiped out a division of between 80 and 90 OMON (special paramilitaries) soldiers in March 2000, is still allied with Basayev and his brand of militant Islam appears to have been adapted to a degree by Basayev. The Russian invasion of Chechnya has in fact seen the radicalization of Islam among many elements in the Chechen republic.

Russia's clumsy invasion of Chechnya has now reached a stalemate as the Russians assume static, defensive positions and continue to suffer a stream of loses in their conflict with the mobile Chechen 'hunter' units which strike throughout the republic. Moving on horseback or hobbling on his handmade wooden leg, Basayev has now become a legend among the Chechen highlanders. He is in many ways a tragic symbol of the Chechens' bloody struggle against Russia. Russia still officially claims that it will not end its campaign until it has destroyed Basayev and Khottab, but this appears to be increasingly unlikely as the Russians begin to withdraw their troops from Chechnya. Russia cannot afford to keep so many units in the field and the Russian army in Chechnya has now been whittled away to 50,000.

A stalemate has now been reached in Chechnya with the Russians officially claiming to control two thirds of the republic but in actuality controlling only the bases they occupy. It would not be surprising if Basayev, Khottab, Mashkadov, and other Chechen field commanders such as Ruslan Gelaiev and Arbi Barayev, take advantage of the weakening of the Russian army in Chechnya to launch more ambitious strikes against Russian bases and Russian-occupied towns such as Chechnya's second largest town Gudermes in the near future. Basayev has vowed to continue the war until all Russian troops have been withdrawn from Chechnya and there is every reason to believe that he will lead a determined partisan war against the Federal forces in Chechnya. Russia has little hope of winning a partisan war in the heavily armed region and many unemployed, armed Chechen fighters no nothing but warfare with the Russians.

CONCLUSIONS: While Basayev is a skilled commander and symbol for the Chechen resistance, his death at the hands of the Russians will not bring a halt to the Chechen guerrilla warfare. Killing Basayev will only make a "shahid" (martyr) out of the Chechens' most famous fighter. Russia's only hopes for ending its increasingly costly war of attrition in Chechnya involves negotiating with moderate Chechen president Aslan Mashkadov and, in the process, sidelining such anti-Russian militants as Basayev. While Mashkadov does not have control over the various field commanders, he does have the ability to negotiate a face saving deal with the Russians that would allow for a gradual withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.

While Russia can afford the war for the moment due to a surge in oil prices in 1999 and 2000, the costs of the war are rising and more and more Russian soldiers are being sent home to their villages in coffins. As Russia's losses continue to mount in Chechnya, Basayev's popularity among the Chechens has soared. The morale and sense of esprit de corps among Basayev's hardened fighters compares drastically to that among the poorly led Russian troops guarding block-posts, roads and bases throughout Chechnya. In Basayev, Putin has met a man who is as determined to achieve victory in the current war as himself.

AUTHOR BIO: Dr. Brian Glyn Williams is a Lecturer in Middle Eastern History at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He work examines post-Soviet migration, the Russo-Chechen Conflict, Wahhabism in Central Asia and the Caucasus, and Crimean Tatar exile and repatriation. His forthcoming book is entitled "A Homeland Lost: Migration, the Diaspora Experience and the Forging of Crimean Tatar National Identity."
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So what other great conspiracy theories have you got?

As I said, it was a suggestion which was made by a journalist and which I reported, personally I don't believe it.

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.

Unlike for your theory, there is evidence pointing to strange behaviour by the FSB during the Moscow bombings. What could be more inappropriate while a country is suffering a series of terrorist incidents than the secret service of that country planting bombs (even dummy bombs) in residential buildings and not telling the local Police in advance, or immediately after they are discovered, that it is all just an exercise.

If you can find similar evidence regarding IRA bombings in Britain that may have been planted by MI5, then I will be happy to consider you 'conspiracy theory'.

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.

Britain should not be in Ireland in my opinion. My Uncle was a soldier and he had friends who served in Northern Ireland and told me about what used to go on there. For example, there was a young British squaddy who was kidnapped while on leave by the IRA and killed. When his body was discovered, it was found that his genitals had been cut off and stuck in his mouth and his head had been bound up in barbed wire. Whether he was shot before or after this was done, no one could say. Thousands more people have lost their lives over the years and what does NI have that's so great anyway? There's no oil, precious minerals etc, all they have is substandard whiskey and Guiness. As far as I'm concerned the Irish can have a united Ireland and get on with it.

England invaded Ireland when an autocrat was in charge and unfortunately has remained there ever since. The reason we are still in Northern Ireland is because the majority of the NI population are loyalists and they always vote to remain in Britain. However, the partition of Ireland by Winston Churchill and lloyd George was a cynical policy because it made the loyalists the majority in the area of British occupation and so the region would always vote to remain British. Progress has been made on a political solution though which hopefully will mean NI will eventually govern itself.

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