Free Republic

MOSCOW, July 31 (UPI) -- Furious at ABC News for an interview aired last week with Chechen leader Shamil Basayev, the Russian defense ministry has blacklisted the network. Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov said "no interviews will ever be given to (ABC). This channel is now persona non grata for the defense ministry and is an outcast," the BBC reported. During the "Nightline" interview, Basayev admitted taking part in the 2004 terrorist raid on a school in Beslan, but said the Russians were also terrorists. Basayev -- Russia's most wanted man, with a $10 million bounty his head -- warned...

Russia's defence chief has barred the ministry from contact with ABC TV after the US network's interview with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev. Sergei Ivanov said the ministry considered ABC "persona non grata" following Thursday's broadcast. However, the foreign ministry has said it will not deny ABC accreditation. The rebel has claimed the 2004 raid on a school in Beslan. In the interview he said he was a "terrorist" but that Russians were "terrorists" too. Russia's most wanted man also said he was plotting more attacks. Condemnation "Today I have given the order to the head of the press service...

RUSSIA'S foreign ministry summoned the United States charge d'affaires yesterday to protest against a United States television network broadcasting an interview with a Chechen rebel leader. The interview with Shamil Basayev, who has claimed responsibility for last year's Beslan school siege - which ended in the death of more than 330 children and adults - and the 2002 seizure of a Moscow theatre that left 129 hostages dead, was broadcast on Thursday by ABC. In the interview, he admitted he was a terrorist but said each Russian had to feel the impact of war in Chechnya before it can stop....

BBC NEWS Russia says it is outraged by an interview with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev broadcast on America's ABC television network. The Russian foreign ministry summoned a senior US diplomat in Moscow to express its "strong indignation" over the show. In the interview, the warlord, who had claimed the 2004 raid on a school in Beslan, admitted he was a terrorist but said the Russians were terrorists too. Russia's most wanted man also warned of further Beslan-type attacks. More than 320 people - around half of them children - were killed in the attack at the school in September....

Russia's Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. Embassy's chargé d'affaires Friday to protest an American television network broadcast of an interview with the Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev. Basayev has claimed responsibility for organizing last year's Beslan school siege that ended in the deaths of about 330 children and adults and the 2002 seizure of a Moscow theater that resulted in 129 hostages dying in a rescue raid. Ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov said Daniel Russell was informed of Russia's "strong indignation" that ABC showed the interview Thursday, Russian news media reported. Speaking on Russian state television, Malakhov said ABC "demonstrated its...

The airing of Shamil Basayev's interview on the U.S. TV network ABC does not reflect the Bush administration's official position on terrorists, Federation Council (upper chamber of the Russian parliament) member Mikhail Margelov said. "I am convinced we should not judge the official position of the Bush administration by this interview. After the Beslan tragedy, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said that Basayev did not have the right to exist, and I think his opinion reflects the position of the U.S. leadership," Margelov said. At the same time, he said, "By allowing terrorists to make public statements using...

Russia says it is outraged by an interview with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev broadcast on America's ABC television network. The Russian foreign ministry summoned a senior US diplomat in Moscow to express its "strong indignation" over the show. In the interview, the warlord, who had claimed the 2004 raid on a school in Beslan, admitted he was a terrorist but said the Russians were terrorists too. Russia's most wanted man also warned of further Beslan-type attacks. More than 320 people - around half of them children - were killed in the attack at the school in September.

Russia says it is outraged by an interview with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev broadcast on America's ABC television network. The Russian foreign ministry summoned a senior US diplomat in Moscow to express its "strong indignation" over the show. In the interview, the warlord, who had claimed the 2004 raid on a school in Beslan, admitted he was a terrorist but said the Russians were terrorists too. Russia's most wanted man also warned of further Beslan-type attacks. More than 320 people - around half of them children - were killed in the attack at the school in September. Russia is...

"The result of the special operation surpassed our expectations," the terrorist's statement runs One of the last leaders of Chechen terrorists, Shamil Basayev, claimed responsibility for the recent blackout in Moscow, which paralyzed a big part of the city and caused huge economic damage to Russia's capital. Basayev claimed that it was him, but not the outdated energetic equipment, that cut Moscow from electric power supplies on Wednesday, May 25th. The statement, which was published on one of Chechen websites, said that the recent crisis with electricity in Moscow had been organized by Chechen gunmen. Shamil Basayev said that diversionary...

The Sufi branch of Islam has enjoyed spectacularly good press in the West. Hailed as peaceful mystics who believe jihad is a spiritual quest, nothing violent or unpleasant, Sufism has attracted favorable attention and converts from all sorts of Westerners, from new agers in Marin County, California, to East Coast intellectuals. But Sufis are not necessarily all peace-loving meditative seekers of the divine. The formation of the “The Sufi Jihadi Squadrons of Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani” in Iraq was recently announced at the jihadist website, “Jihad Unspun”. The Al-Gilani (d.1166) after whom they are named was in fact a Hanbali...

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Russia faces renewed attacks from Chechen rebels after its security forces killed moderate leader Aslan Maskhadov, guerrilla warlord Shamil Basayev has warned in an interview published by Swedish TT news agency. Basayev, blamed by Moscow for a series of bloody strikes against civilian targets including last September's Beslan school massacre, said he was no longer bound by a commitment to peace he had given former Chechen leader Maskhadov. Russian security forces killed Maskhadov on March 8. "Nobody can prevent me from responding to violence with violence," TT quoted Basayev as saying in written replies to questions...

When I first heard that Aslan Maskhadov--the former president of the self-proclaimed separatist Republic of Chechnya and the nominal head of the separatist insurgency--was killed by the Russian Special Forces, my reaction was quite a mixed one. On the one hand, I agree that he was probably the last separatist with whom Moscow could have struck a deal acceptable to both Russia and Chechnya. With all his faults, he was a democratically elected leader of the breakaway Russian Republic. Also I have a deep anger at the Kremlin thugs for starting twice in the past decade despicably savage, barbaric and...

GROZNY. March 9 (Interfax) - Now that Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov has been killed, the republic's presidential security service will focus on an operation aimed at detaining terrorist Shamil Basayev, Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov told Interfax. "The elimination of Aslan Maskhadov will accelerate the process of establishing the whereabouts of Basayev and detaining him. Now we can pay twice as much attention to this problem, as previously we had to work in several directions," Kadyrov said. Basayev is extremely dangerous to society, and "terrorism is his way of living and his way of thinking. In...

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) - Russian authorities have killed five people and arrested four others suspected of aiding the hostage-taking attack on a school in southern Russia last fall that killed 330 people, prosecutors said Friday. Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel said in a statement that the arrested men were suspected of helping stage the attack in Beslan, where assailants held more than 1,000 hostages for nearly three days before the siege ended Sept. 3 in gunfire and explosions. Shepel said that five other suspects were killed while resisting arrest. The statement did not say when or where the raid took...

NALCHIK, February 20 (Itar-Tass) - The gunmen, killed in Nalchik on Sunday, were members of armed gangs, subordinated to Basayev and Maskhadov, Russian Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelev told reporters on Sunday. According to deputy minister, they are members of the Karachayevo-Cherkess jamaat and were on the federal Wanted List for committing terror acts in the Rostov Region and Stavropol Territory and were hatching new terror acts. In Yedelev’s words, new methods were used during the special operation: officially permitted Cheremukha-7 gas was used to neutralize the bandits who entrenched themselves in an apartment. “Gunmen suffered a serious blow”...

A British television channel has broadcast an interview with Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, ignoring Russia’s appeal for it not to go on air. The interview was broadcast as part of Channel 4 News at 22:00 Moscow time on Thursday. Explaining its decision to go ahead with the Basayev broadcast, Channel 4 said: “We recognise, of course, that Shamil Basayev's views will be regarded worldwide as repugnant, but we reject utterly any notion that we are being irresponsible.” Excerpts of the interview were published by The Times on Thursday. Basayev took responsibility for the Beslan school hostage drama in September, and...

We're going to do it again, says man behind Beslan bloodbath Just in case you thought that the horrors of Beslan had wrought in them a change of heart. Note also more testimony to the general uselessness of the "terrorist" designation. From the Times Online, with thanks to Jeff Norris: THE Chechen rebel leader who masterminded the Beslan school siege last autumn plans more such operations, despite his apparent remorse over the deaths of more than 330 people — half of them children — in the North Ossetia attack. In his first interview since that bloodbath, Shamil Basayev says that...

Almost a month ago, Chechen rebels sent an open letter to the European Parliament complaining that Russians/pro Russian Chechens have kidnapped Maskhadov's relatives: Last week, Russian special services and criminal gangs, supported by the Kremlin and led by the notorious Chechen Kvisling, Kadyrov the younger, took as hostage in Grozny and other cities and villages the family of the President of the Chechen Republic Aslan Maskhadov. Among them are his brothers Lechi Maskhadov, 76 years old, Lyema Maskhadov, 68 years old, his sister Dzhovzhan Abdu1kadyrova (Maskhadova), 69 years old, and also two cousins: Adam Reshiev, 60 years old, and lkhvan...

The death of Shamil Basaev has highlighted acute challenges in financial footage of the Chechen resistance. There is no definite answer to the question of the utmost importance. Who’s going to run the financial route to fighting Chechnya? Via this route the money gathered by brothers in faith from worldwide has been supplied to Chechnya so far. The task of finding a suitable candidate able to step into the vacant position of the main resistance financier is rather a challenging one due to some suspicions. They are linked to habitual theft of the money on its way to the ordinary...

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...