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| CHECHEN TERRORIST HAVE AL QAEDA TIES |
While no official link has been made between the two [Boston Marathon bombers and Chechen Terrorists], we educate our readers on the deadly group known as "Chechen Terrorists".The terror going on in Boston has some terrorist overtones [while some aspects of the plot seem methodical, some seem down right stupid, such as the after effects of their destruction, no money, no car, no escape plan]. Each breaking story in Boston - or the surrounding towns of Boston, now details a methodical plan to impose terror on America. While the story has yet to come to a climatic end - we at NFTOS expose the background of the evil group known as the "Chechen Terrorist".
What you need to know:
Chechens are an ethnic minority living primarily in Russia's North Caucasus region. For the past two hundred years, they have generally been governed by Moscow, though they have had varying degrees of de facto autonomy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Chechen separatists launched a coordinated campaign for independence, which resulted in two devastating wars and an ongoing insurgency in Russia's republic of Chechnya. Militants in and around Chechnya continue to agitate for independence, though the death of separatist leader Shamil Basayev in July 2006 weakened the separatist movement. However, violence in the North Caucasus has escalated since 2008, and Moscow experienced its most serious attack in six years with the bombing of a metro station in March 2010.
Who are the Chechens?
The Chechens are a largely Muslim ethnic group that has
lived for centuries in the mountainous North Caucasus region. For the past two
hundred years, Chechens have resisted Russian rule. During World War II, Soviet
leader Joseph Stalin accused the Chechens of cooperating with the Nazis and
forcibly deported the entire population to Kazakhstan and Siberia. Tens of thousands
of Chechens died, and the survivors were allowed to return home only after
Stalin's death.
Has Chechnya ever been independent?
Chechnya has experienced several brief periods of de facto
independence. In January 1921, four years after the Russian Revolution,
Chechnya joined Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, and
Ingushetia to form the Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. But the
following year, the Soviet Union seized control of Chechnya and turned it into
a Soviet province called the Chechen Autonomous Oblast. In January 1934, Soviet
officials merged the Chechen Autonomous Oblast with the neighboring Ingush
Autonomous Oblast, largely to dilute each region's ethnic identity.
During World War II, as German forces moved into the Soviet
Union and toward the North Caucasus, many ethnic minority groups subject to
Soviet and Russian rule for generations seized on the opportunity presented by
the war to try and break free. German forces never reached Chechnya, but
Chechen nationalist Khasan Israilov led a revolt against Soviet rule which
lasted from 1940 to 1944. After Soviet troops crushed the rebellion, Stalin
accused the Chechens of collaborating with Nazi invaders. In 1944, Stalin
disbanded the Chechen-Ingush republic altogether and forcibly deported the
entire Chechen population to Siberia and Kazakhstan. Chechens were not allowed
to return to their homeland until 1957, when Stalin's successor, Nikita
Khrushchev, restored the province amid de-Stalinization.
What is the post-Soviet history of violence in Chechnya?
In the early 1990s, following the Soviet collapse,
separatists in the newly formed Russian Federation Republic of Chechnya started
an independence movement called the Chechen All-National Congress. Russian
President Boris Yeltsin opposed Chechen independence, arguing that Chechnya was
an integral part of Russia. From 1994 to 1996, Russia fought Chechen guerillas
in a conflict that became known as the First Chechen War. Tens of thousands of
civilians died, but Russia failed to win control of Chechnya's mountainous
terrain, giving Chechnya de facto independence. In May 1996, Yeltsin signed a
ceasefire with the separatists, and they agreed on a peace treaty the following
year.
But violence flared again three years later. In August 1999,
Chechen militants invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan to
support a local separatist movement. The following month, five bombs exploded
in Russia over a ten-day period, killing almost three hundred civilians. Moscow
blamed Chechen rebels for the explosions, which comprised the largest
coordinated terrorist attack in Russian history. The Dagestan invasion and the
Russian bombings prompted Russian forces to launch the Second Chechen War, also
known as the War in the North Caucasus. In February 2000, Russia recaptured the
Chechen capital of Grozny, destroying a good part of the city center in the
process, reasserting direct control over Chechnya. Tens of thousands of
Chechens and Russians were killed or wounded in the two wars, and hundreds of
thousands of civilians were displaced. Since the end of the second war, Chechen
separatist activity has diminished, and the July 2006 death of separatist
leader Shamil Basayev--in an explosion many see as the work of Russia's
internal security services--seems to have stifled the movement. Since 2008,
however, violence has markedly increased in the North Caucasus, according to a
report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Incidents of
violence rose from 795 in 2008 to 1,100 in 2009, and suicide bombings quadrupled
in 2009, the majority of which occurred in Chechnya.
Which terrorist groups operate in Chechnya?
Information about groups linked to the conflict in Chechnya
is hard to confirm, but experts say the struggle is between local
separatists--a loosely organized group with semi-independent commanders--and
the Russian army. According to the U.S. State Department, the Islamic
International Peacekeeping Brigade (IIPB) is the primary channel for Islamic
funding of the Chechen guerillas, in part through links to al-Qaeda-related
financiers on the Arabian Peninsula. The United States also defined the
Chechnya-based Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR) and the Riyadus-Salikhin
Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs as terrorist entities
in February 2003.
Chechnya's long and violent guerrilla war has attracted a
small number of Islamist militants from outside of Chechnya--some of whom are
Arab fighters with possible links to al-Qaeda. Among the Islamist militants,
the most prominent was Basayev, Russia's most wanted man. Basayev fought for
Chechen independence for more than a decade, and was the mastermind behind the
worst terrorist attacks on Russian soil. On July 10, 2006, Basayev was killed
in an explosion in neighboring Ingushetia. His death cast doubt on the future
of the Chechen separatist movement, and allegedly led to the surrender of five
hundred militants. Four months later, Russian security forces killed Abu Hafs
al-Urdani, the Jordanian-born commander of foreign fighters in Chechnya. Since then,
violence in Chechnya has ebbed, though terrorism in the areas of Dagestan and
Ingushetia has increased.
What major attacks are the Chechen groups responsible for?
The most notorious and devastating attack came in September
2004, when Basayev ordered an attack on a school in Beslan, a town in North
Ossetia. More than three hundred people died in the three-day siege, most of
them children. There were thirty-two militants, though only three or four were
Chechens. All but one of the militants were reportedly killed during the siege.
Since then, violence has generally targeted individual officials and government
offices rather than large groups of civilians. Attacks include:
An August 1999 bombing of a shopping arcade and a September
1999 bombing of an apartment building in Moscow that killed sixty-four people.
Two bombings in September 1999 in the Russian republic of
Dagestan and southern Russian city of Volgodonsk. Controversy still surrounds
whether these attacks were conclusively linked to Chechens.
A bomb blast that killed at least forty-one people,
including seventeen children, during a military parade in the southwestern town
of Kaspiisk in May 2002. Russia blamed the attack on Chechen terrorists.
The October 2002 seizure of Moscow's Dubrovka Theater, where
approximately seven hundred people were attending a performance. Russian
Special Forces launched a rescue operation, but the opium-derived gas they used
to disable the hostage-takers killed more than 120 hostages, as well as many of
the terrorists. Basayev took responsibility for organizing the attack, and
three Chechen-affiliated groups are thought to have been involved.
A December 2002 dual suicide bombing that attacked the
headquarters of Chechnya's Russian-backed government in Grozny. Russian officials
claim that international terrorists helped local Chechens mount the assault,
which killed eighty-three people.A three-day attack on Ingushetia in June 2004, which killed
almost one hundred people and injured another 120.
Street fighting in October 2005 that killed at least
eighty-five people. The fighting was in the south Russian city of Nalchik after
Chechen rebels assaulted government buildings, telecommunications facilities,
and the airport.
An attack on the Nevsky Express, used by members of the
business and political elite, in November 2009 killed twenty-seven people.
In March 2010, two female suicide bombers detonated bombs in
a Moscow metro station located near the headquarters of the security services,
killing thirty-nine people. Islamist Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed
responsibility for the bombing; he had also claimed responsibility for the
derailment of the Nevsky Express.
Two days after the metro station bombing in March 2010, two
bombs exploded in the town of Kizlyar, in Russia's North Caucasus, killing at
least twelve people.Are there links between Chechen groups and al-Qaeda?
Experts say there are several ties between the al-Qaeda
network and Chechen groups. A Chechen warlord known as Khattab is said to have
met with Osama bin Laden while both men were fighting the 1979-89 Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan. Alexander Vershbow, a U.S. ambassador to Russia,
said shortly after September 11, 2001, "We have long recognized that Osama
bin Laden and other international networks have been fueling the flames in
Chechnya, including the involvement of foreign commanders like Khattab."
Khattab was killed in April 2002.
Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted for his involvement in
the September 11 attacks, was reported by the Wall Street Journal to be
formerly "a recruiter for al-Qaeda-backed rebels in Chechnya."
Chechen militants reportedly fought alongside al-Qaeda and Taliban forces
against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in late 2001. The Taliban regime in
Afghanistan was one of the only governments to recognize Chechen independence.
FOOTNOTE: We at NFTOS are not in the business of scaring our readers. We are here to educate, so that you can make sensible, educated decisions. The importance of our mission in this instance is to explore the possible association to this very nasty group.
For those in the Boston area, heed the advice of the authorities, be vigilant, and most importantly, be safe!
NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West
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