Terrorism in Russia

[MaxPower]

Three terrorist attacks have happened in Russia in the last week.

Why is the US so quiet about this? Don't the Russians derserve our support?

Is there really a war on terrorism?

I'm confused.

[sam h]

The whole thing has been really weird. One would think the administration would be more vocal about it. Plus, Putin hasn't fallen all over himself trying to link his problem to Al-Qaeda like he has in the past.

[ QUOTE ]
Is there really a war on terrorism?

[/ QUOTE ]

There was a war against the Taliban and a war against Saddam.

And there is a hopelessly mismanaged effort led by the administration to stop a vicious criminal enterprise (terrorism) practiced by heterogenous groups of malcontents in various parts of the world.

[ThaSaltCracka]

It could have something to do with Russia's Iraq war policy But I don't know. I agree why has the media and the admin been so quiet?

[Gamblor]

I wonder if the terrorists were from the Religion of Peace(TM)

[MaxPower]

I'm not sure what that is, but I believe the Chechen rebels are Muslims.

[ThaSaltCracka]

new story

Attackers seize hostages at Russian school (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5881958/)

BESLAN, Russia - More than a dozen militants wearing suicide-bomb belts seized a southern Russian school in a region bordering Chechnya on Wednesday, taking an estimated 300 hostages — many of them children — and threatening to blow up the building if police storm it. As many as eight people have been reported killed, one of them a parent.


Hours into the desperate standoff, security officials said they had made brief contact with the hostage-takers, believed to be Chechen rebels.

Russian special forces wearing camouflage and carrying heavy-caliber machine guns surrounded Middle School No. 1. About 1,000 people, mostly parents, were massed the three-story building in the town of Beslan, demanding information and accusing the government of failing to protect their children.

There was confusion over the number of hostages, but local police estimated that between 300 and 400 teachers and students were being held in the school.

Militants vow 50-1 killing ratio
Kazbek Dzantiyev, head of the North Ossetia region’s Interior Ministry, said that the hostages have threatened “for every destroyed fighter, they will kill 50 children and for every injured fighter — 20 (children),” the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The school takeover in Beslan, located 10 miles north of the regional capital of Vladikavkaz, was the latest blamed on secessionist Chechen rebels. It came a day after a suicide bomber killed nine people in Moscow and a week after near-simultaneous explosions blamed on terrorists caused two Russian planes to crash, killing all 90 people on board. The surge in violence was apparently timed around last Sunday’s Chechen presidential election.


The U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting later Wednesday at the request of Russian Ambassador Andrei Denisov to discuss the wave of deadly terrorist attacks in Russia, council diplomats told Reuters.

“In essence, war has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front,” Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said.

President Vladimir Putin interrupted his working holiday Wednesday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi for a second time and returned to the capital. On arrival at the airport, he held an immediate meeting with the heads of Russia’s Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, the Interfax news agency said.

The standoff began after a ceremony marking the first day of the Russian school year, when it was likely that many parents had accompanied their children. About 17 militants, men and women, stormed the three-story building and herded captives into the gymnasium. They forced children to stand at the windows and warned they would blow up the school if police intervened, said Alexei Polyansky, a police spokesman for southern Russia.

At one point, a girl wearing a floral print dress and a red bow in her hair fled the school, her hand held by a flak-jacketed soldier. An older woman followed them. Ruslan Ayamov, spokesman for North Ossetia’s Interior Ministry told the Associated Press that 12 children and one adult managed to escape after hiding in the building’s boiler room.

Sporadic gunfire continued to ring out throughout the day.

‘Like a shot into my heart’
"Every gunshot I hear is like a shot into my heart," said a woman who identified herself as Vera and said her child was among the hostages.


Hours after the seizure, Regional Federal Security Service chief Valery Andreyev said on NTV television that negotiations with the hostage-takers “are just, just beginning” and that brief contact had not allowed authorities to evaluate the situation in Beslan.

The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing local hospitals, reported that seven people died of injuries in the hospital and one was killed at the site during the seizure.

But Regional Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev told the AP that two civilians were killed and nine hospitalized, and that two other bodies were visible near the school. Interfax cited a health official as saying four people were killed, but the emergencies ministry later said the toll was two.

Dzgoyev said a girl was also lying near the building, presumably wounded, but officials said the area could not be approached because it was coming under fire.

Fatima Khabalova, spokeswoman for the regional parliament, earlier said one of the dead was a father who brought his child to the school and was shot when he tried to resist the raiders. She also said at least nine people had been injured in gunfire, including three teachers and two police officers.

Suspicion in both the school attack and the Moscow bombing fell on Chechen rebels or their sympathizers, but there was no evidence of any direct link. The attacks came around Chechnya’s presidential elections, a Kremlin-backed vote aimed at undermining support for the insurgents by establishing a modicum of civil order in the war-shattered republic. The previous president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed with more than 20 others in a bombing May 9.

One hostage said released with demands
The militants inside the school released one hostage with a list of their demands, including the freedom of fighters detained over a series of attacks on police facilities in neighboring Ingushetia in June, ITAR-Tass reported.

They also seek talks with regional officials and a well-known pediatrician, Leonid Roshal, who aided hostages during the deadly seizure of a Moscow theater in 2002, news reports said.

Parents of the seized children recorded a videocassette appeal Putin to fulfill the terrorists’ demands, Khabalova said. The text of the appeal was not immediately available.

The violence was the latest to plague Putin, who came to power vowing to crush the Chechen rebellion. Terrorism fears in Russia have risen markedly following the plane crashes and the suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station Tuesday night. The blast by a female attacker tore through a busy area between the station and a department store, killing nine people and wounded more than 50.


Authorities said Tuesday that 10 people were killed, but Interfax reported Wednesday that Moscow health officials revised that, saying one man who died in a hospital was not a victim of the blast.

A militant Muslim web site published a statement claiming responsibility for the bombing on behalf of the “Islambouli Brigades,” a group that also claimed responsibility for the airliner crashes. The statements could not immediately be verified.

The statement said Tuesday’s bombing was a blow against Putin, “who slaughtered Muslims time and again.” Putin has refused to negotiate with rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya who have fought Russian forces for most of the past decade, saying they must be wiped out.

[Gamblor]

I believe the Chechen rebels are Muslims.

I'm in total shock. The Religion of Peace strikes again.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not sure what that is, but I believe the Chechen rebels are Muslims.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are some jihadi types allied with the Chechens, but in general the insurgency there is really a nationalist seperatist movement.

But they're all muslims, so why not just bunch them together, right?

[BadBoyBenny]

They were too busy planning their convention to worry about fighting or denouncing terrorism last week.

[MaxPower]

I was not implying that their being Muslims has anything to do with their use of terrorism. That was Gamblor.

You are right, it is a seperatist movement that has been going on for over 150 years.

[sam h]

Max,

The sarcasm wasn't aimed at you, but at others.

Sam

[ThaSaltCracka]

yeah why not lump them all together? I mean there were only Chechens training and fighting in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda. FWIW, I would agree with you though that their fight has more to do with independence that anything else, but their close connections with Al Qaeda can't be ignored either.

[sam h]

[ QUOTE ]
I mean there were only Chechens training and fighting in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, there were people from many different countries in training there. But that doesn't mean that the Chechens committing the terrorist acts and generally leading the insurgency against Russia are the same people as those who trained with Al-Qaeda.

[ThaSaltCracka]

did you read my whole post or just that one line?

There is defintely a connection between the Chechens and Al Qaeda, but even if there wasn't, there acts alone are completely deplorable. Make no mistake about it, they are terrorists in every sense of the word.

[adios]

.................

[ThaSaltCracka]

thats the better question.

[adios]

Perhaps it's prudent to say nothing while attempts to defuse the situation are ongoing.

[ThaSaltCracka]

yeah but you would atleast expect a comment from someone.

[ACPlayer]

The only war on terrorism actively under way is the one Kerry is waging on the Republicans.

The war of futilely beating ones chest while scratching ones nuts and screaming in a Tarzanesque manner is actively under way by the bushman.

[MMMMMM]

"The only war on terrorism actively under way is the one Kerry is waging on the Republicans.

The war of futilely beating ones chest while scratching ones nuts and screaming in a Tarzanesque manner is actively under way by the bushman."


For a minute, I thought I was reading a post by jokerswild--then reality struck with a dull thud.

[vulturesrow]

Its quite possible that the Russian leadership has asked that the US not comment on the situation for the moment.

[ThaSaltCracka]

I find that hard to believe, but I suppose its possible. Russia is a strange country so maybe they have asked for that. I dunno, I just posted a story in this thread, but according to my count Russia has had 4 terrorists attacks in the past 7 days. Two airplane crashes, one car bomb, and now 8 killed and 150 held hostage in a Russian school near Checnya. I have heard that the Chechens are having elections in the next couple weeks, so maybe it has something to do with that.

[Cyrus]

Popular cop shows on TV usually promote an anti-civil rights position and quite a large number of people endorse it. It's when they present criminals getting away due to "technicalities" (eg not reading his Miranda rights) or "sharp lawyers" (translation = incompetent police or DA work), etcetera. In such cases, the cop show producer expects us to react with "Aw, if it wasn't for all that goddamn liberal horsecrap!"...

We get to watch developments in Russia (or similar places) such as the hostage situation in 2000 inside a Moscow cinema. The outcome of that one was 100 hostages killed. Putin's people ordered a wholesale attack without the slightest consideration for the hostages' lives. In the West, a lot of people admire that kind of attitude. They see it as "determination". In reality it is the old authoritarian regime's total contempt for the individual and for civil rights. The foolish audience in the West gets envious of the "free hand" that Russian police has in dealing with "criminals".

A similar situation in an American or western European city (the cinema situation, I mean) would be dealt with entirely differently. As an example, I will only mention that the Moscow authorities did not expect any hostages to come out alive! This is why there were very few ambulances outside. Hostages survived through the gas attack but died helpless outside the theatre. Only those who had relatives to transport them with private means to a hospital made it.

Expect a similar, brutal outcome in the school situation. The odds are heavily in favor of tens of schoolchildren getting killed - by the kidnappers and/or the Russian police in the process of "liberating" them.

[nicky g]

Nearly half the Chechen population has been killed or forced to flee by the (non-Muslim) Russians. But of course Islam is to blame when somehting like this happens.

[adios]

I do too but since SaltCracka thinks they should by golly they should /images/graemlins/smile.gif.

[adios]

..............

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Nearly half the Chechen population has been killed or forced to flee by the (non-Muslim) Russians. But of course Islam is to blame when somehting like this happens.


[/ QUOTE ]

The non muslims Russians get the blame for that. The muslim terrorist get the blame for blowing up two airliners and a school full of childern. You're not going to find a clean soul in that fight.

Stu

[nicky g]

Of course the individuals get the blame for their own actions. I was respondin to the idea that this whole conflict is happening because Islam is inherently violent, which is offensive and absurd.