Recently in Russia Category

With Chechnya and the Caucasus always simmering with jihad, and Beslan, and jihad attacks and plots in Moscow and everywhere, Russian authorities are waking up to the possibility that religious texts can incite people to violence. And so they're considering banning...the Bhagavad Gita. No kidding.

The Lok Sabha is the lower house of Parliament in India.

"Lok Sabha storm as Russian court decides whether to ban Bhagavad Gita," from NDTV, December 19 (thanks to HJS):

Moscow: The Lok Sabha was adjourned this morning over protests against the demand for a ban on the Bhagavad Gita in a Russian court.

In a Siberian court, state prosecutors have petitioned that the Gita, distributed locally by ISKCON members, is "extremist" literature. The court in Siberia's Tomsk city is scheduled to deliver its verdict today....

Earlier today, Congress MP Milind Deora tweeted, "Absurd to suggest the Bhagwad Gita is even remotely pro-violence! Hope Russian Courts appreciate its intrinsic appeal in a pluralistic India."

The case, which has been going on in Tomsk court since June this year, seeks to get a Russian translation of Bhagvad Gita As It Is written by AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), on the Hindu religious text banned in Russia and declaring it as a literature spreading "social discord", apart from rendering its distribution on Russian soil illegal....

The prosecutor's case also seeks to ban the preaching of Prabhupada and ISKCON's religious beliefs, claiming these were "extremist" in nature and preached "hatred" of other religious beliefs.

"They have not just tried to get the Bhagvad Gita banned, but also brand our religious beliefs and preachings as extremist," Das said....

The explanation was that the sanctions "will be seen in the international community as an instrument for regime change in Iran." Kicking the can down the road, with another round of time-buying sanctions that would be generally ineffectual in halting the Iranian nuclear program, would be a funny way of going about regime change. "Russia rules out new Iran sanctions over nuclear report," from BBC News, November 9:

Russia has ruled out supporting fresh sanctions against Iran, despite a UN report that says Tehran may be trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Britain, France and the US all said they would pursue new sanctions against Iran in the wake of the IAEA report.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the report showed the need for the world to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons.

The US and its allies suspect Iran of trying to develop a nuclear bomb, which Tehran denies.

The Iranian government insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful means.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told Interfax news agency that extra sanctions "will be seen in the international community as an instrument for regime change in Iran".

"That approach is unacceptable to us, and the Russian side does not intend to consider such proposals."

The Russian foreign ministry later issued another statement saying that the report "does not contain fundamentally new information".

However, Mr Netanyahu accused Iran of endangering world peace.

"The significance of the report is that the international community must bring about the cessation of Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons which endanger the peace of the world and of the Middle East," he said in a statement.

"The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] report corroborates the position of the international community, and of Israel that Iran is developing nuclear weapons," Mr Netanyahu added.

The IAEA said it had information indicating Iran had carried out tests "relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device".

The report - published on the Institute for Science and International Security website - says the research includes computer models that could only be used to develop a nuclear bomb trigger.

It documents alleged Iranian work on the kind of implosion device that would be needed to detonate a nuclear weapon....

Bikinis: haram. Setting land mines on a beach to maim bikini-clad women: halal. Note in this piece how quickly the Caspian beach has been made Sharia-compliant. "Terror at the Beach," by Anna Nemtsova in the Daily Beast, September 30 (thanks to Mehreen):

The beach is crowded with men these days. Powerful, muscled Dagestani men, who practice martial arts and wrestle on the littered sand of the Caspian Sea shore in the capital city of Makhachkala. Some sit around, enjoying boiled ears of corn with butter and salt; others play soccer or ride on their buddies’ shoulders in the waves, competing to see who can last longest without collapsing into the water. Rare groups of shy women in long flannel dresses enter the sea holding children by the hand; their long skirts and colorful hijabs immediately soak up salty water, like sponges. Bikinis? There are almost none. The social change here has been fast and radical: just two summers ago, only a smattering of women swam in their long dresses and scarves on Russia’s Caspian Sea beaches. This year, public opinion in the region—the place with the highest level of terrorist attacks in Russia—decided to put an end to the "sinful" display of women’s bodies. The appearance of a rare tourist in a modern swimsuit elicits frowns, and a grumpy comment in the local language. One word is always clear: haram or “forbidden.”

To make life easier for both women who want to swim yet have no bathing robes (nicknamed burkinis), and for men keen on playing on the beach without violating the dictates of Islam, the state opened the first Sharia-compliant beach in Russia this month. Named "Mountain Woman Beach," it’s a gated community, open to women, girls and boys younger than 6 years of age. Visitors can rest in comfortable wooden shelters to escape the heat or swim in the ocean without the burden of burkinis. The beach is proof enough, if any were needed, of the rise of Islam in Russia. It’s also a security measure to protect women from a recent, gruesome spate of bombings at the Caspian shore.

On a clear morning last July, at around 6 a.m., schoolteacher Yelena Abduzhalimova met her colleagues on the central city beach for a round of volleyball. As the ladies changed into their swimsuits, a group of young boys began to warm up for wrestling exercises before their morning classes, right by the volleyball court. Other than the children, the beach was still fairly empty at that hour. Abduzhalimova walked onto the court with her friends and she stepped forward to serve the ball. Instantly, a powerful explosion threw her into the air, flying 10 feet above the ground. She had stepped on a mine hidden in the sand. It was the third explosion on the public beach that season, and one that cost Abduzhalimova her leg above the knee. The bomb was meant as punishment for women wearing swimsuits, she says. Now, she says she wished the Sharia beach had been open back then. “If only the guarded beach for women existed a year ago, I would have my leg now,” Abduzhalimova said, adding it was a lucky chance that she stepped on the mine before a child did.

Not all women are so positive about the Sharia beach. “First, they make deadly threats for wearing a bikini; next they will want us to stop wearing our shorts and jeans, then ban us from going to restaurants and universities,” says Bakanai Huseinova, a manager of a financial company in Dagestan. Huseinova fears that the increasing terror attacks will eventually start to pressure and control all spheres of a woman’s life—social, familial, spiritual. Terror attacks have been escalating not only against bikini-clad women, but against all symbols of secular Dagestani society. Just this year, there have been more than 200 terror attacks on Dagestan’s food stores, cafés, and saunas that sell liquor, as well as on religious centers and law enforcement. The attacks have killed hundreds of social workers, local deputies, police, high-ranking army officers, even imams. In addition, two school principals who spoke out against schoolgirls wearing the hijab were killed this year in Dagestan.

While the Islamist insurgency in Dagestan is trying to intimidate women into following Sharia law, in the neighboring republic of Chechnya, the leadership itself is taking the initiative. Unveiled women are banned from entering state buildings; teen-age girls are obliged to come to school with their hair covered. Last fall, women in sleeveless dresses and short skirts were harassed and shot by paint guns on the streets by the semi-official morality police. Leaflets distributed at Muslims girls’ schools this summer warned, “Behavior is important—Muslim women should not speak loudly or look directly into the eyes of men.” The initiatives are supported at the very top: Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed president Ramzan Kadyrov, pushes the new Islamic dress code, and his wife has a fashion house that creates Islamic dress standards. On state television, shows are devoted to instructing women about the proper look for a pure Muslim, and feature models in floor-length gowns with veiled faces....

And you wondered what in the world your apartment neighbors were cooking. "Russian security forces foil Islamist terror plot to bomb train," by Alissa de Carbonnel for Reuters, August 16 (thanks to Twostellas):

Russian authorities have foiled a plot by militants who were building fertiliser bombs in a suburban apartment and planning to attack a bullet train between Moscow and St Petersburg, a newspaper reported.

Citing security sources, Kommersant revealed details of an alleged plot by militants from the North Caucasus that Russia’s top security official had described to President Dmitry Medvedev last month as a "large terrorist attack" targeting transport.

The Kremlin is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency in its mostly Muslim North Caucasus regions that continues to undermine Russia’s security and stability in the wake of two wars against Chechen separatists.

The insurgents claimed responsibility for a bombing that killed 26 people on a Moscow-St Petersburg train in 2009, as well as suicide bombings that killed 37 people at Moscow’s busiest airport in January and 40 in the metro in March 2010.

Militant leader Doku Umarov has vowed more bombings. An attack would be a blow to Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ahead of a March 2012 vote in which one of them is expected to run for president.

Kommersant said the suspected mastermind, a 22-year-old native of the North Caucasus province of Kabardino-Balkaria, allegedly recruited at least three men to help carry out the attack on the Sapsan, a high-speed train connecting Russia’s largest cities.

A Federal Security Service (FSB) source told the paper the group made bombs out of ammonium nitrate in a rented apartment near the busy railway line and had planned to place one on the tracks some 20 kilometres north of Moscow.

FSB officials declined to comment on the report.

In televised comments last month, FSB director Alexander Bortnikov told Medvedev that "a large terrorist attack" targeting "crowded facilities and transport infrastructure" had been averted near Moscow.

Kommersant said the suspected mastermind, Islam Khamuzhyev, had recruited two men with whom he played soccer and another he had met at a mosque to help in the attack.

"Misunderstanding" must be his middle name.

Giving their opinion on efforts to oppose "extremism." "Attack on Caucasus anti-extremist official kills 2," from Reuters, July 22 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

MAKHACHKALA, Russia, July 22 (Reuters) - Gunmen opened fire on the convoy of Russia's top anti-extremism campaigner for the Dagestan region of the restive North Caucasus on Friday, killing two guards, local officials said.

A car posing as a local taxi in the regional capital of Makhachkala pulled up on the road alongside the convoy belonging to Akhmed Bataliyev, the chief of Dagestan's Centre for Anti-extremist Activities, and started shooting.

"Two people were killed," said a source at the local Investigative Committee, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Nestled between the Caspian Sea and the province of Chechnya, the site of two separatist wars since 1994, Dagestan has become the most violent region in Russia's North Caucasus, where an Islamist insurgency aims to carve out an Islamic state.

Militants in Dagestan regularly target security officials as well as local leaders, and recently killed a school headmaster who opposed female students wearing headscarves, as well as a moderate Islamic educator killed in June.

"Two non-believers were killed ... The top-level criminal survived," rebels wrote on vdagestan.info, which represents the Dagestani section of the insurgency.

Bataliyev was not injured in the attack. Security forces launched an operation to find the gunmen who fled their car on foot after the shooting, the Committee source said....

Despite Moscow pouring billions of dollars into the impoverished region, violence continues and analysts say the insurgency is gaining in numbers and scope before parliamentary elections later this year and the March 2012 presidential poll.

What? Money doesn't solve the problem? Stop the presses!

Why, something to hide?

Talgat Tadzhuddin's call for less coverage brings to mind a strange reversal of the "tree falling in the forest" question: Move everyone out of earshot of trees falling in the forest, and for good measure, stop discussing falling trees. Because we can't hear them anymore, no trees are falling in the forest. Or, perhaps, only a Tiny Minority. Problem solved.

Oh, and if you say otherwise, you hate trees. "Russia's Muslim leader wants less coverage of terrorism," from RIA Novosti, July 19 (thanks to Twostellas):

Russian TV channels should broadcast less news about terrorism and extremism, the chief mufti of Russia, Talgat Tadzhuddin, said on Tuesday at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

"Once an explosion occurs somewhere, it is discussed every hour for at least two days," Tadzhuddin said. He suggested instead that media outlets pay more attention to "the lifestyle of the Russian peoples, their traditions and beliefs."

Tadzhuddin also proposed in February the establishment of a "spirituality tax" to raise money for the construction of new mosques and cathedrals. The tax was to be collected from all residents of Bashkiria, regardless of their faith.

Bashkir has a Muslim majority. Money raised from all faiths is far more likely to go to mosques, making it a thinly concealed jizya tax on non-Muslims. It will also siphon off money they could give directly to build their houses of worship. Besides, what do Bashkir's atheists get for their contribution, a bowling alley?

In April, he suggested adding Islam's crescent to Russia's national emblem.

Muslim minorities make up around one seventh of Russia's population. Some analysts suggest that high Muslim birthrates cold mean Islam will become Russia's dominant religion by 2050.

"The suspects had planned to target 'crowded facilities and transport infrastructure' and that security officers had confiscated homemade bombs, other weapons and a map with an attack plan."

"Russia says militant attack foiled in Moscow," by Steve Gutterman for Reuters, July 18:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's top security official said on Monday that authorities had averted a "large terrorist attack" in the Moscow area by militants armed with homemade bombs and other weapons.

Russian authorities frequently claim to have foiled attacks by militants from the North Caucasus, a volatile region plagued by an Islamist insurgency, but claims to have foiled large-scale assaults targeting Moscow are rare.

"Literally several days ago ... a large terrorist attack was averted at the preparation stage in the Moscow area," Federal Security Service director Alexander Bortnikov told President Dmitry Medvedev in televised comments.

He said four suspects from the mainly Muslim North Caucasus had been detained and that accomplices had been identified.

Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, president from 2000-2008, have struggled to contain the Islamist insurgency, and the Kremlin is nervous about possible attacks ahead of December parliamentary elections and a March presidential vote.

Medvedev and Putin, still seen as Russia's paramount leader, have suggested that one of them will run for president.

Addressing the Kremlin leader, Bortnikov said the suspects had planned to target "crowded facilities and transport infrastructure" and that security officers had confiscated homemade bombs, other weapons and a map with an attack plan.

Insurgent leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 37 people at Moscow's busiest airport in January and twin bombings on the Moscow metro that killed 40 in March 2010.

Umarov has said he has readied dozens of potential suicide bombers and has threatened more attacks this year.

Why we don't see more genuine Muslim reformers, part 213928: "Imam, school principal shot dead in Russia's Dagestan," from AFP, July 10 (thanks to Mackie):

Russia:Village imam was shot dead during evening prayer in Russia's restive Dagestan region late Saturday, the region's interior ministry said.

Imam Magomed Makhdiyev was shot in the back and head by an unidentified gunman in Karamakhi village mosque during evening prayer, Dagestan's interior ministry said on its website on Sunday.

Makhdiyev died at the scene, the ministry said.

It was the second known murder of an imam in less than a month in Dagestan, where religious and educational leaders appear to be increasingly targeted as Russia fights an Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus.

A school principal was targeted early Saturday in a different region of Dagestan. Sidikullah Akhmedov, who worked in the Sovetskoye village school, died on the spot near his home from wounds to the stomach, the ministry said.

Islamist website JamaatShariat.com, affiliated to the Caucasus Emirate group, called Akhmedov an "adversary of Islam" who opposed the wearing of the hijab in school.

The crescent moon is the symbol of Islam because it is forever growing, expanding, on the increase. "Top imam ‘calls for crescent on Russia's crest,’" from Agence France-Presse, April 15 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

A top Muslim cleric called Friday for a crescent moon to be added to Russia's double-headed eagle coat of arms to represent the country's multi-million-strong Muslim population.

"We are asking for one of the heads to be topped with a crescent moon and the other to be topped with a Russian Orthodox cross," Talgat Tadzhuddin told the Moskovskiye Novosti daily in an interview.

"All the crowns on the coat of arms – two on the heads of the eagles and one above them in the middle – are topped by crosses. But Russia has 20 million Muslims. That's 18 percent of the population," he said in an interview.

The imam, who heads the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, a major regional association, said he sent the proposal to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and showed a sketch to President Dmitry Medvedev.

Most of Russia's Muslims live in historically Muslim regions, such as the North Caucasus, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, but there is also a huge swell of immigrants from Muslim ex-Soviet states to large cities....

Yet another story indicating why we don't see more Muslims standing up to jihad violence -- aside, of course, from the fact that such violence has plenty of sanction in the Qur'an.

"Prominent imam killed in Russia's Dagestan," from AFP, April 9 (thanks to Gertjan):

MOSCOW (AFP) – A prominent imam who discouraged youth from joining Islamic militants has been shot dead in his home in the strife-torn southern Russian republic of Dagestan, news reports said Saturday.

Magomed Saiputdinov was slain by automatic gunfire in a nighttime attack near the Chechen-border town of Kizlyar, agencies quoted a spokesman for the local interior ministry as saying.

"He was widely known for his uncompromising stand against any forms of violence, condemning the murder of innocent people and other atrocities of the Chechen underground," Interfax quoted a police statement as saying.

Saiputdinov was the sixth Muslim religious leader to be killed in the republic in the past year, with the previous fatal attack occurring on November 1, 2010, RIA Novosti quoted the National Anti-Terror Committee as saying....

"They sprayed the building with automatic gunfire and then detonated a car bomb, which shattered windows and damaged the roof," and still didn't kill anyone: failed jihadis.

"Islamic militants wound 7 police officers in Russia's province of Dagestan," from The Associated Press, March 15:

MAKHACHKALA, Russia — Police in Russia's restive southern province of Dagestan say that seven policemen have been wounded by militants.

Local police spokesman Vyacheslav Gasanov said that several gunmen drove to a police precinct in the town of Kizilyurt late Monday. They sprayed the building with automatic gunfire and then detonated a car bomb, which shattered windows and damaged the roof.

In a separate incident Tuesday, police shot and killed three suspected militants on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Makhachkala....

Dagestan has emerged as the main base for Islamic militants, who launch near daily attacks on police and other authorities.

He also called upon his "brothers and sisters in Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries" to "create a revolution, and by this I mean instating the word of Islam... the law of Allah."

"UPDATE 1-Russian rebel calls for jihad, praises Arab unrest," by Amie Ferris-Rotman for Reuters, March 3:

MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - Chechen-born rebel leader Doku Umarov, Russia's most wanted man, called on Muslims throughout the country to wage jihad against the state in videos posted on websites on Thursday....

"Spring has come, the end of February, so I ask you, brothers, to activate jihad, eliminate the enemies of Allah," Umarov said in an eight-minute, Russian-language video posted on several insurgency-affiliated sites.

"I want to appeal to those ... everywhere in Russia where there are Muslim brothers today ... I call on you to open up the front in all places," Umarov said. Sporting a long black beard, he was flanked by two men and was filmed in snow-covered woods....

Umarov, 46, in a separate video, urged his "brothers and sisters in Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries" to "create a revolution, and by this I mean instating the word of Islam... the law of Allah"....

He has said he ordered the bombing in January of Russia's busiest airport in which 37 people were killed, as well as twin suicide bomb attacks on the Moscow metro last year in which 40 died....

In a sign the insurgency could spread, Umarov said he wanted Russia's "occupied Muslim lands" such as the oil and petrochemicals producing regions of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, to join in jihad.

"This is a total war," he said before raising his index finger to the camera....

Yes, but only one side looks at it that way.

Jihad against hospitals and hotels. "Reports: 12 Russian police wounded in Islamist attack on Caucasus province," from The Associated Press, February 25:

MOSCOW — Russian media say 12 police were wounded during an Islamist attack on a provincial capital in the volatile Caucasus region.

The Itar Tass news agency said Friday militants launched grenades on a regional security agency, a hospital and a hotel in Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkariya province. No one was wounded in the attack, it said.

The Interfax agency reported 12 police officers were wounded by the militants at two traffic police stations outside Nalchik....

While the European Union and Obama applaud the advent of "democracy" in the Middle East, Medvedev sees things more clearly. "Medvedev sees `fires for decades' in Arab world," by David Nowak for the Associated Press, February 22 (thanks to Jack):

MOSCOW – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday predicted decades of instability in the Arab world if protesters whom he called fanatics come to power, adding no such scenario will be permitted at home.

Medvedev's words fall in sharp contrast with the European Union, which said in a statement on Monday that it "deplores the violence" and "repression" against the pro-democracy protesters by authorities in one of the troublespots, Libya.

Speaking at a security meeting in the Caucasus city of Vladikavkaz, Medvedev didn't name countries, but he was referring to the crisis in the Middle East and North Africa — which has brought down governments in Tunisia and Egypt and sparked protests in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, Morocco and Jordan.

"These states are difficult, and it is quite probable that hard times are ahead, including the arrival at power of fanatics. This will mean fires for decades and the spread of extremism," Medvedev said in televised comments....

The "beardies" step up their jihad in the North Caucasus. More on this story. "Masked gunmen kill three as Islamist militants target £9bn ski resorts plan," by Tom Parfitt in the Guardian, February 20:

A wave of killings is sweeping the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria as Islamist insurgents expand their battle across the strife-ridden North Caucasus. Security forces introduced a strict anti-terrorism regime near the ski mountain of Elbrus, after masked gunmen shot dead three Muscovite tourists and injured two others travelling by minibus towards the resort area on Friday.

It comes a fortnight after Doku Umarov, the insurgents' Chechen leader who ordered the Domodedovo airport bombing that killed 36 people in January, promised Russia a "year of blood and tears". The murder of the tourists was almost certainly organised with the aim of discrediting Kremlin plans to develop a £9bn chain of ski resorts across the North Caucasus, announced by President Dmitry Medvedev at the Davos World Economic Forum last month.

Television pictures showed the tourists' bullet-riddled vehicle as security operatives introduced a curfew and identity checks near Elbrus – the main resort in Medvedev's plan.

An explosion at one of the resort's cable cars, also on Friday, brought several cabins crashing to the ground. No-one was hurt in that incident but three more bombs were defused at the resort on Saturday.

The attacks were most likely orchestrated by Islamist militants who have carried out a spate of murders in the republic in the last three months. Kabardino-Balkaria's mufti, Anas Pshikhachev and Aslan Tsipinov, a prominent ethnographer who the militants accused of promoting paganism, were assassinated in December....

In Nalchik, a smart town of tree-lined boulevards, there is a palpable sense of fear.

Albert, a taxi driver who declined to give his surname, said: "Every other day someone is exterminated. The beardies [extremists] leave leaflets around town threatening, 'don't go to this doctor, don't get your hair cut by a woman.'"

He added: "There was a fortune teller in our district, a Greek. He made predictions by looking at coffee dregs. Innocent guy. They killed him, just like that."...

The intrepid mujahedin, keeping the world safe from Russian tourists riding in a minibus to a ski resort. "Four Russian tourists killed on way to Caucasus ski resort," from the Telegraph, February 19:

At least four tourists from Moscow have been killed by militants in Russia's North Caucasus region on their way to a ski resort.

The group were heading towards the Kabardino-Balkaria region of Russia.

Cowards fi sabil Allah:

"Two people in masks armed with automatic guns in a foreign-made car forced the minibus onto the hard shoulder, asked about passengers, then opened fire on the vehicle and fled from the scene," the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

All six people in the vehicle were from the Moscow region. Three died on the spot and two were taken to hospital, it said.

A message on Islamist website Islamdin.com, hosted by the militant group Caucasus Emirate, said the tourists were killed by "mujahideens" because they "came into the zone of war".

And who decided it was a war zone?

The group was going skiing to the Elbrus mountain area when they were ambushed near the village Zayukovo, according to the NTV channel, adding that a fourth person died in hospital.

The Kremlin fought two wars against separatist rebels in Chechnya in the 1990s but the insurgency has now become more Islamist in tone and has spread to neighbouring regions.

We hear so much that "poverty" causes jihad -- despite the number of well-off, educated jihadists. More often than not, jihad causes poverty:

The targeting of tourists will be especially worrying for Russia's authorities, who have pronounced the North Caucasus a future mountain ski haven, unveiling plans of a $15 billion dollar program to create five resorts.

One of the proposed resorts, Elbrus-Bezengi, is in the Kabardino-Balkaria region and would host up to 29,000 tourists per day under the plan.

Glorying in death and destruction to appease his bloodthirsty god. "Islamist rebel says he ordered Russian bombing," from Reuters, February 8 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

LONDON (Reuters) - Islamist rebel leader Doku Umarov said on Monday he had ordered a suicide bombing that killed 36 people at Russia's busiest airport last month.

Umarov, 46, speaking in a video carried by the Islamist website www.Kavkazcenter.com, said there would be further such attacks in pursuit of an independent Muslim state governed by Sharia law in Russia's Caucasus region -- a territory embracing Chechnya, Dagestan and other nearby territories.

Umarov appeared in the video, apparently made on the day of the January 24 attack on Moscow's Domodedovo airport, wearing combat fatigues, talking quietly and hesitantly.

"The special operation today in Moscow ... was carried out on my orders," said Umarov, who styles himself the Emir of the Caucasus.

"These special operations will continue ... to show the chauvinist regime of (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin in Moscow ... that we can carry out these operations where we want and when we want," he said, pointing a finger toward the camera.

The attack bore the hallmark of Caucasus rebels but Monday's video was the first time Umarov had claimed direct responsibility for it....

The attack on Moscow's Domodedovo airport took place in a crowded terminal building on a busy late afternoon. Russian officials say the suicide bomber was a 20-year-old native of the North Caucasus.

Umarov appeared in a separate video on February 5 declaring that Russia faced a year of 'blood and tears' if it refused to abandon its North Caucasus territories. He appeared with a young man he described as a 'brother' being dispatched to Moscow to carry out an unspecified operation....

She was shocked when she discovered that her "devout Muslim husband" was involved in jihad terror activity. This may be because her instruction in Islam was only partial -- it is not at all uncommon for jihadists when recruiting converts to Islam to tell them about the violent and supremacist aspects only after their conversion and some time has elapsed. If this woman is not a convert, nonetheless she may have learned Islam in an area where a relatively benign cultural form of the religion prevailed, and only later did she meet up with the self-proclaimed true adherents of the faith. "Terrorists threatened to kill my baby unless I became a Black Widow: Young mother on how she was groomed to be a Russian suicide bomber," by Will Stewart in the Daily Mail, January 31 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

A 24 year-old woman who was being groomed as a 'Black Widow' suicide bomber in Moscow has revealed the barbarity behind the terrorist cell which unleashed last week's airport bomb in the Russian capital, it was claimed yesterday.

Before fleeing the extremist Islamic gang, Zeinat Suyunova was being schooled for the airport bombing, or a planned attack on a shopping centre almost underneath the Kremlin, say investigators....

The mother of one told how she discovered to her shock that her devout Moslem husband - the father of her baby daughter who she met when she studied at a respected medical academy in southern Russia - was involved in perpetrating a terrorist atrocity.

Soon afterwards she was kidnapped, her daughter taken from her. She was told the child would be killed unless she became a bomber to avenge her husband's capture by the Russian secret services.

'They threatened to kill my daughter if I did not agree to go to Moscow and help with explosions,' she told investigators.

'They kept threatening, on and on, and in the end I agreed.'

She said: 'I did not have a choice. My daughter was kidnapped by these people. I was told that either I go and do the explosion, or my daughter will be killed.'

In Moscow, she was kept in a hotel with another young woman named Aminat as they were trained for explosions at Domodedovo airport, and an underground shopping centre close to Red Square.

However, Aminat - believed to be the wife of an extremist leader in strife-torn Dagestan - was killed accidentally detonating a belt packed with explosives. Another version says she died when a spam text message on her mobile set off the explosive device on 31 December....

The terrorists went ahead with the airport plan, killing 35 people, but did not carry out the shopping centre attack. It is unknown if she has been re-united with her baby....

The imam Abdullah Stepanenko "was convicted of holding a man captive in 2006, and police found Wahhabist literature, audio and video materials, as well as a manual on explosives, in his home." Nonetheless, he "received a suspended sentence after the Muslim community, including the head of the Council of Muftis of Russia Ravil Gainutdin, spoke in his defence and wrote an open letter to then-president Vladimir Putin."

Now wait a minute. We're constantly told -- by government officials, law enforcement, and Muslim spokesmen in the West -- that jihad terrorists represent a Tiny Minority of Extremists™ within the larger, peaceful Muslim community, and that the Vast Majority of Peaceful Muslims abhors those Extremists and rejects their ideology.

If that is so, why did "the Muslim community, including the head of the Council of Muftis of Russia Ravil Gainutdin," speak out in defense of Abdullah Stepanenko and even write "an open letter to then-president Vladimir Putin"? Shouldn't they instead have been repudiating Stepanenko and everything he stood for?

More on this story. Tiny Minority of Extremists™ Update: "Airport bomber converted by Russian imam: Report," from AFP, January 28:

MOSCOW: The man who has emerged as the initial suspect over the suicide bombing at Moscow Domodedovo airport lived in south Russia and was converted to Islam by an ethnic Russian imam, a report said Friday.

Police reportedly honed in on Vitaly Razdobudko after connecting him with Islamist militant group Nogaisky Dzhamaat and a December 31 blast in Moscow where a would-be female suicide bomber accidentally blew herself up.

Investigators said Razdobudko has been missing from his apartment in the southern resort town of Pyatigorsk in the Stavropol region since last November along with his wife and a newborn baby.

Razdobudko, 32, converted from Christianity and adopted Islam when he was a student in the local technical university. He was formally converted by a local imam in Pyatigorsk, a Russian named Anton Stepanenko, the report said.

Stepanenko, whose Muslim name is Abdullah, was convicted of holding a man captive in 2006, and police found Wahhabist literature, audio and video materials, as well as a manual on explosives, in his home.

He received a suspended sentence after the Muslim community, including the head of the Council of Muftis of Russia Ravil Gainutdin, spoke in his defence and wrote an open letter to then-president Vladimir Putin....

Yet another convert to Islam misunderstands his new, peaceful religion. Yet there is not a single program in any mosque or Islamic school anywhere in the world dedicated to teaching new converts to reject jihad violence and Islamic supremacism. Now, why is that?

"Moscow bomber 'was Islamist militant from North Caucasus,'" by Andrew Osborn in the Telegraph, January 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The suspected mastermind of the Moscow airport bombing is thought to belong to a local Islamist militant group in the North Caucasus, security sources say.

Police are urgently seeking information about Vitaly Razdobudko, a 32-year-old ethnic Russian man who converted to Islam. He is a native of Russia's volatile Stavropol region which is located around 800 miles south of Moscow, close to the Muslim internal republics of Chechnya and Dagestan.

An alleged member of a radical Wahhabite terror group called the Nogai Jamaat, he is suspected of being one of the bloody attack's main organisers. Some sources have suggested he may also have personally taken part in the attack. The bombing, at Moscow's busy Domodedovo airport, left 35 people dead....

At last, a good use for spam. "Black Widow attempted New Year Moscow attack but blew herself up by mistake," by Andrew Osborn in the Telegraph, January 26 (thanks to Mackie):

A "Black Widow" suicide bomber planned a terrorist attack in central Moscow on New Year's Eve but was killed when an unexpected text message set off her bomb too early, according to Russian security sources.

The unnamed woman, who is thought to be part of the same group that struck Moscow's Domodedovo airport on Monday, intended to detonate a suicide belt on a busy square near Red Square on New Year's Eve in an attack that could have killed hundreds.

Security sources believe a spam message from her mobile phone operator wishing her a happy new year received just hours before the planned attack triggered her suicide belt, killing her but nobody else.

She was at her Moscow safe house at the time getting ready with two accomplices, both of whom survived and were seen fleeing the scene.

Islamist terrorists in Russia often use cheap unused mobile phones as detonators. The bomber's handler, who is usually watching their charge, sends the bomber a text message in order to set off his or her explosive belt at the moment when it is thought they can inflict maximum casualties.

The phones are usually kept switched off until the very last minute but in this case, Russian security sources believe, the terrorists were careless.

The dead woman has not been identified. Her handler, a 24-year-old woman from the internal Muslim Russian republic of Dagestan, has been named as Zeinat Suyunova. Her husband is apparently still serving time in jail for himself being a member of a radical Islamist terror group.

Security sources believe the new year's eve bomber and the airport bombers may have been members of a suicide squad trained in Pakistan's al-Qaeda strongholds which was sent to the Russian capital in December to target the city's transportation system....

And why? Because they want to establish Sharia, of course. And they believe that the way to impose what they consider to be the law of the supreme and only God is through bloodshed and terror. "Russian region head blames bomb on Caucasus rebels," by Amie Ferris-Rotman for Reuters, January 27 (thanks to Block Ness):

MAGAS, Russia (Reuters) - Islamist insurgents from the North Caucasus were behind a suicide bomb attack that killed 35 people at Russia's busiest airport, the head of the mainly Muslim province of Ingushetia said on Thursday.

Ingush leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who heads an impoverished region neighboring Chechnya, is the most senior Russian official to blame insurgents publicly for Monday's attack on Moscow's Domodedovo airport.

"These leaders of the North Caucasus underground are responsible, like Doku Umarov," Yevkurov told reporters in Ingushetia's capital, Magas, referring to a Chechen rebel chief who calls himself emir of the "Caucasus Emirate."

"The Caucasus Emirate did it, I am sure they did it," he told journalist in his oak-lined and heavily-guarded palace.

"International airports, trains, crowds... It doesn't matter what you protect: It is like putting on a gel against mosquitoes. You will always miss a spot and they will find it."

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack that killed at least eight foreigners. It bore the hallmarks of Caucasus insurgents and Russian media said security forces were hunting for an ethnic Russian suspect from an Islamist group.

Russia's leaders are struggling to contain a growing Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, a strip of impoverished, mainly Muslim provinces along predominantly Orthodox Christian Russia's southern border.

Local leaders say a mix of clan feuds, poverty, Islamism and heavy-handed tactics by law enforcement agencies has driven youths into the ranks of rebels who want to create a Sharia-based pan-Caucasus state separate from Russia.

A leading daily, citing unnamed security sources, said the wanted man was named Razdobudko and was believed to be a member of the Nogai Jamaat, an insurgent group based in Dagestan, a region at the heart of the Islamist insurgency fueled by two post-Soviet separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya.

The Kommersant daily said the man may have organized the attack or even been the suicide bomber himself. A mug shot photograph of him on the Internet shows a young man with short cropped hair and a beard, staring defiantly at the camera.

He was one of about 10 people wanted in connection with the attack, the state-run RIA news agency cited an unidentified law enforcement official as saying.

Investigators "are certain the trail of the crime leads to the North Caucasus. The suicide attacker who detonated the bomb in the airport was a native of that region," the official was quoted as saying.

The Nogai Jamaat, a group experts say operates under the umbrella of the "Caucasus Emirate," was reported to be behind a foiled New Year's Eve plot in Moscow when a bomb detonated prematurely killing a would-be female suicide bomber....

Umarov, who rose to the head of the Chechen guerrilla movement in June 2006 after Basayev was killed by Russian security forces, now leads a rebellion that has increasingly morphed from a separatist to a radical Islamic movement.

In October 2007, Umarov styled himself as head of the Caucasus Emirate, uniting rag-tag rebel groups in several southern Russian regions in a drive to establish Sharia, or Islamic law, across the Caucasus mountains.

Our friend and ally exports jihad terror to the West. Will the U.S. be next? "Moscow airport bomb: suicide bombers were part of squad trained in Pakistan," by Andrew Osborn and Damien McElroy in the Telegraph, January 26 (thanks to Ron):

The two suicide bombers who carried out the Moscow attack were thought to be part of a suicide squad trained in Pakistan's al-Qaeda strongholds sent to the capital to target the city's transport system. [...]

An eyewitness said the woman had been dressed in black and had worn a veil, suggesting she may have been a 'Black Widow' suicide bomber from the North Caucasus region out to revenge the killing of her husband by Russian security forces.

"The explosion occurred the moment the presumed female suicide bomber opened her bag," the security source told the RIA Novosti news agency. "The terrorist was accompanied by a man. He was standing beside her and (the blast) tore off his head."

Intelligence services have been embarrassed by the revelation that informants had warned of an attack on an airport in the Russian capital just weeks before the incident. Security experts said the tip-off had revealed that a criminal gang based in the Moscow suburbs was assisting a Chechen bombing making squad and that a suicide cell was travelling from a training camp.

A newspaper close to Russia's FSB security service published what it claimed was a warning to Moscow police issued in December that said there was credible intelligence that a suicide squad made up of three women and one man from Chechnya was headed to Moscow.

The memo said the team had spent time in Pakistan and Iran and that one of the women had a relative with a flat in Moscow that might be used as a bomb making factory. Another group of five Islamist militants trained in Pakistan was also expected to cross into Russia soon, it added.

An al-Qaeda linked website said that the group Islamic Caucasus Emirate, led by the rebe [sic] Doku Umarov, was poised to claim it had staged the attack. It said that Russia's harsh military measures against independence activists in the Caucasus had provoked the attack. It said: "You disbelievers are the firewood of Hell. You will enter it."

The daily Kommersant newspaper said security service officials were alerted to the extent of the threat when a woman accidentally blew herself up on New Year's Eve in Moscow. It later emerged that her husband was in jail for being a member of an Islamist terror group and that she and a girlfriend had been sent to Moscow from the internal Muslim republic of Dagestan to commit an act of terror. [...]

What will he do? Step up Russian aid for Iran's nuclear program? "Putin: Retribution 'inevitable' for airport attack," by Jim Heintz for Associated Press, January 25:

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin vowed "retribution is inevitable" for the suicide bombing that killed 35 people at Russia's busiest airport, while President Dmitry Medvedev demanded robust checks at all transport hubs and lashed out at the airport for lax security....

No claims of responsibility have been made for the attack Monday at Domodedovo Airport, which also left 180 people injured. Suspicion is likely to fall, however, on Islamist separatist insurgents from Chechnya or elsewhere in Russia's restive Caucasus region who have been battling Russian authority for over 15 years.

Chechen insurgents have claimed responsibility for an array of attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, including a double suicide bombing on the capital's subway system in March 2010 that killed 40 people. They also have hit Domodedovo Airport before, with two suicide bombers slipping through its security in 2004 to kill 90 people.[...]

The blast came at 4:32 p.m. Monday, when thousands of passengers and workers were in the terminal. They were sprayed with shrapnel containing screws and ball bearings, intended to cause as many casualties as possible, and thick smoke engulfed the terminal....

World leaders issue their usual expressions of sorrow and outrage (not reproduced below; why bother?) -- but what will they end up doing to try to prevent another attack like this? Not much in the way of actual focus on the real perpetrators. "'I will kill you all': at least 35 die in Moscow airport bombing," by Maria Antonova and Stuart Williams for AFP, January 25:

A suicide bomber shouted ''I will kill you all'' before triggering the deadly blast that killed at least 35 people at Russia's Domodedovo airport, according to media reports.

The bomber carrying a suitcase walked into Moscow's busiest airport and set off a huge explosion today in the packed arrivals hall, in an attack slammed by the Kremlin and the world as an act of terror.[...]

The Emergencies Ministry said 35 people were killed, 86 hospitalised with injuries and 94 were given medical treatment.

The Guardian reported that up to 168 people were injured, many of them critically.

Witnesses said the bomber shouted: ''I will kill you all'', before triggering the blast that sent ball bearings and shrapnel across the airport, The Independent reported on its website on Tuesday.

America's CBS News said a man in blood-soaked clothes said he was just a few metres away from the explosion and saw a man who may have been the suicide bomber.

''I saw the suitcase, the suitcase was on fire,'' Artyom Zhilenkov, a 35-year-old driver, told CBS.

''So, either the man blew up something, or something went off on the man's body, or the suitcase went off.''

Mr Zhilenkov said he thought he had been severely injured, but doctors told him he was coated in other victims' blood.

''The guy standing next to me was torn to pieces,'' he said.

CBS correspondent Mark Phillips also said the bomber shouted: ''I will kill you all'' just before he detonated his explosives[.]

Russian investigators found a head of "Arab appearance" that is presumed to have belonged to the suicide bomber, Interfax said.

According to preliminary information, the bomber was a resident of the overwhelmingly Muslim Northern Caucasus region, Interfax said....

The Russian capital has been repeatedly rocked by attacks over the past few years blamed on militants from the Northern Caucasus region, where Russia has for years been battling an Islamist insurgency.

Double bombings carried out by two female suicide bombers on the Moscow metro on March 29, 2010, killed 40 and wounded more than 100.

The Kremlin fought two wars against separatist rebels in Chechnya in the 1990s but the insurgency has now become more Islamist in tone and has spread to neighbouring Ingushetia and Dagestan....

And suspicion rests on the Caucasus jihadists. An update on this story. "Moscow reels as terrorism returns to capital (Wrapup 3)," from RIA Novosti, January 24:

Moscow saw its second suicide attack in less than 12 months on Monday as a terrorist assault on the Russian capital's busiest airport left over 30 dead, officials said.

Preliminary reports suggest a bomb was detonated by a suicide bomber as passengers arrived at Domodedovo airport's international arrivals gate at 4:40 p.m. (13:40 GMT).

Health and emergency officials said 35 people died and many dozens more were injured.

Planes from London and Brussels, as well as Greece, Ukraine and Egypt, had landed in the 30 minutes preceding the attack. A British Airways plane heading for Domodedovo returned to London when the news broke.

Law enforcement officials said the power of the blast was equal to 5 kg of TNT and that the bomb was packed with metal objects to cause maximum damage. A RIA Novosti correspondent at the scene reported floors and staircases covered in blood.

YouTube footage showed the bodies of the dead and injured lying in a smoke-filled arrivals zone.

Media reports of second suicide bomber have not been confirmed.

A visibly shaken President Dmitry Medvedev told officials in a televised meeting that, "From the preliminary information we have, it was a terrorist attack." [...]

A law enforcement source told RIA Novosti that the security services were aware that terrorists were planning an attack on a Moscow airport, but were unable to locate and detain the three suspects they had been searching for.

Comments by Russian bloggers suggested that there was free access, without security checks, to the arrivals gates....

More: "Suicide bomber kills 35 at Russia's biggest airport," by Alexei Anishchuk for the Associated Press, January 24:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people at Russia's biggest airport on Monday in an attack that bore the hallmarks of militants fighting for an Islamist state in the north Caucasus region.

Timed for maximum casualties:

President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to track down and punish those behind the bombing, which also injured about 130 people, including foreigners, during the busy late afternoon at Moscow's Domodedovo airport. Dense smoke filled the hall and a fire burned along one wall. [...]

The Kremlin said Medvedev, who has called the insurgency in the north Caucasus the biggest threat to Russia's security, delayed his departure for the Davos international business forum in Switzerland.

The rebels have vowed to take their bombing campaign from the violence-wracked north Caucasus to the Russian heartland, hitting transport and economic targets. They have also leveled threats at the 2014 Winter Olympics, scheduled for Sochi, a region they claim as part of their "emirate." [...]

No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack, but dozens of Internet surfers, writing in Russian, praised the suicide bomber on unofficial Islamist site kavkazcenter.com....

More "tension between Christians and Muslims," which almost always seems to "flare up" when Muslims attack Christians somewhere. Islamic Tolerance Alert from Ordzhonikidze: "Church set on fire in Russia's Muslim Caucasus," by Amie Ferris-Rotman for Reuters, January 3 (thanks to Twostellas):

MOSCOW -- Unidentified attackers set a church ablaze with a grenade in Russia's mainly Muslim North Caucasus late on Sunday, media reported, in the latest act of violence in a region where Moscow is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency.

No one was hurt in the attack on the Russian Orthodox Church, state-run RIA news agency reported, which took place at 9.30 p.m. in the town of Ordzhonikidze, in the impoverished Ingushetia region which borders Chechnya.

"A rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the church. The shell hit the church's roof," a police source told RIA.

A decade after Moscow drove separatists from power in the second of two wars in Chechnya, the North Caucasus is plagued by violence, where youths angry about poverty and fired up by the ideology of jihad (holy war) stage near-daily attacks.

Though rare, vandalism of churches belonging to the small Christian communities in the North Caucasus has increased over the past year.

Tension between Christians and Muslims -- who make up a fifth of Russia's population -- flared in Moscow last month in a string of ethnic clashes....

Here is yet another installment in our ongoing series, Why Genuine Islamic Reformers Are So Hard to Find: "Ignorant Wahhabis Killed Fifty Imams and Muftis in North Caucasus," from the Ahlul Bayt News Agency, December 30 (thanks to Twostellas):

Renowned islamologist Roman Silantyev cited statistics according to which about fifty Islamic spiritual leaders were killed in the North Caucuses [sic] for fighting against Wahhabism.

"Almost 50 people were killed. These people could have formed a big muftiat," he said in the The Faith and the World program on the Voice of Russia radio.

According to the islamologist, there are few such people left in Russia: "they are killed almost every month, losses is some muslim boards are irreplaceable, the greater number of people who were able to actively fight against Wahhabism have been killed."

"Others are demoralized and stopped opposing or just deserted to the enemy. The situation is critical," Silantyev believes.

He is satisfied that Russian authorities ordered to give security guards to Muslim spiritual leaders in the North Caucasus, "or we can just stay without allies."

Waging jihad on behalf of the umma is a supra-national endeavor. "Jihad in the Caucasus?," by Stephanie Findlay in Macleans, December 2 (thanks to Harold):

An increasing number of recent terrorist attacks in Russia's North Caucasus have attracted the attention of analysts who point to a growing role of Arab fighters and even preachers in the region. "North Caucasus jihadis' linkage to the global jihad is now at a level in which clerics have become influential and are sought out for fatwas and advice," writes Murad Batal al-Shishani, a political analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based political think tank, noting what appears to be the spreading influence of Arab Salafist ideologues.

Among the recent examples of an Arab presence is the highly publicized but not unique death of 24-year-old Jordanian Anas Khalil Khadir, who was killed in Chechnya in June after joining jihadist groups there. And in August, Jordanian Salafist ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Syrian cleric Abu Basir al-Tartusi condemned the fracturing of jihadist groups in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, advocating they unite under the militant Chechen Islamic leader Doku Umarov....

The jihadists "wished to drive a wedge between people of different nationalities and religions." That much is true. But do "true believers, no matter what religion they belong to," really "always respect other religious and cultural traditions"? Not always.

"Church bombing in Ingushetia aims to spark interreligious feud - Patriarchate," from Interfax, November 22 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

Moscow, November 22, Interfax - The Moscow Patriarchate has condemned the attack on an Orthodox church in Ingushetia.

"True believers, no matter what religion they belong to, always respect other religious and cultural traditions. Only heathens could have done that," Moscow Patriarchate spokesman Archpriest Vladimir Vigilyansky told Interfax-Religion on Monday.

He said that the attackers "wished to drive a wedge between people of different nationalities and religions."

"They keep escalating tensions and inciting local residents," the priest said.

He called the attempts to spark an interreligious feud senseless and said that "Muslims and Orthodox people had always lived together [in the North Caucasus and Russia] and the country had never witnessed interreligious conflicts."

A grenade launcher round was fired at a cupola of an Orthodox church in Orjonikidzevskaya, Ingushetia, in the early morning hours of Monday. The damage was minor. None of the clerics were hurt. Police are investigating the incident and looking for suspects.

"It was a well-orchestrated provocation, but we can not talk about inter-religious enmity, especially between Orthodox Christians and Muslims." Meanwhile, an imam has been killed as well, so it looks as if this "inter-religious enmity" is upon them regardless of their wishes. And while Feofan's sentiment, "We can not blame Muslims, we can not judge people by individual incidents," is a common one, it is a bit out of focus, just as it is when the Islamic supremacist proponents of the Ground Zero mosque hotly insist that Muslims as a whole cannot and must not be made to bear "collective responsibility" for the 9/11 jihad attacks. In reality, no one with any sense is blaming all Muslims for anything that any individual Muslim has done; the problem lies in the Islamic texts and teachings that are used to justify such acts of violence. There is ample justification in the Qur'an, which calls upon Muslims to fight Christians until they "feel themselves subdued" (9:29), and the Sunnah, in which Muhammad tells his followers to offer non-Muslims conversion or subjugation, and to go to war with them if they refuse both, for attacks such as this one. Muslims who oppose such attacks need ultimately to confront the existence of these Islamic teachings and work honestly to blunt their force, but non-Muslims need immediately to recognize that this is not being done within the Muslim community now, and to make a realistic appraisal accordingly, and take what steps must be taken to defend themselves and their way of life.

"Attack on Christians in Russian Caucasus," by Nina Achmatova for Asia News, November 3 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The North Caucasus is till burning and this time the target of violence are religious. Attacks on Christian churches and against Muslim leaders have taken place between 1 and 2 November in different parts of the region.

Local Christian leaders have been trying now not to foment tension and avoid pointing the finger at religious extremism, but the eyes of investigators and public opinion are all pointing in that direction.

At dawn on Nov. 1, three fires have occurred in as many churches in the Autonomous Republic of Karachayevo-Cherkessia. According to preliminary reports, the attackers set fire to an Orthodox church in Orjonikidzevsky, almost destroyed, then continued on to another Orthodox and a Baptist church. In all cases, the buildings wee [sic] saved by the immediate intervention of pastors and faithful, who, after calling the fire department, started to put out the flames on their own....

Christian leaders have taken steps to curb possible tensions with the Muslim community. Press and investigators immediately indicated the track of religious extremism, which infests the Russian Caucasus. According to statements by the Archbishop of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz, Feofan, there are no preconditions for talking about religious hatred in the region: "It was a well-orchestrated provocation, but we can not talk about inter-religious enmity, especially between Orthodox Christians and Muslims." "We can not blame Muslims, we can not judge people by individual incidents. Even policemen and muftis are killed and the attack has the same matrix: the intention is to destabilize inter-religious harmony, but they will not succeed", added the Orthodox bishop.

Almost to prove his words, news of the assassination of the imam of a mosque in Khasavyurt, in the Republic of Dagestan, with a gunshot to the head, authorities are investigating.

A leading Moscow imam, Ildar Ayautdinov, has threatened to have Muslims conduct prayers in Orthodox churches if they don't get more mosques in Moscow, and added: "There is a need to construct mosques, otherwise something bad will supersede spiritual development." Something bad, eh? I can't imagine what!

Meanwhile, will Moscow authorities allow a mosque to be built where a church was disallowed? Sounds familiar.

"Proposed Moscow Mosque Stirs Protests," by Natalya Krainova in the Moscow Times, September 27 (thanks to Twostellas):

A dispute has escalated over plans to build a mosque in Moscow's southeastern outskirts, with local residents vowing to send an appeal with about 2,000 signatures to President Dmitry Medvedev and nationalist groups promising to support them.

Muslim leaders defend the need for the worship site, saying the capital's four mosques are overflowing with people.

Residents of the Tekstilshchiki district in southeastern Moscow will send Medvedev a complaint signed by more than 1,800 people opposing construction of the mosque, mainly on the grounds that it might cause massive traffic jams in the area on Islamic holidays, activist Mikhail Butrimov told The Moscow Times on Friday. Butrimov leads the movement Moi Dvor, or My Yard, which supports residents in their fight against the mosque.

Butrimov said residents asked local authorities several years ago to build a Russian Orthodox chapel or create a park on the unused lot. But authorities banned construction on the plot, saying utilities ran underneath it, he said....

"Moscow is the only place in the world where over one million Muslims are served in only four mosques. We lack premises for praying. Muslims are allowed to conduct their religious ceremonies in Orthodox churches, but we would rather avoid this extreme measure." In other words, give us more mosques, or we will take over your churches. Orthodox churches, with their proliferation of icons, are about as unsuited for Islamic prayer, with its abhorrence of shirk -- the association of partners with Allah -- and furious iconoclasm, as a building can possibly be. If Muslims begin praying in such churches in large numbers, they will begin demanding that the icons be taken down or covered up -- and eventually the places will become mosques in due course, like so many former churches in the Middle East.

"Moscow imam reminds that Muslims may pray in Orthodox churches," from Interfax, September 15 (thanks to Bruce):

Moscow, September 15, Interfax - The lack of mosques in Moscow may drive Muslims to visit Orthodox churches, imam-hatyb of the Moscow Cathedral Mosque Ildar Ayautdinov expresses his concern.

"Moscow is the only place in the world where over one million Muslims are served in only four mosques. We lack premises for praying. Muslims are allowed to conduct their religious ceremonies in Orthodox churches, but we would rather avoid this extreme measure," he said in an interview to the Moscow issue of Metro daily.

He referred to the concerns voiced by the opponents of constructing a mosque in the Tekstilschiki District of Moscow that such mosque would threaten dog owners and said that "nothing threatens dogs, this is just ridiculous."

"Ibn Mughaffal reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered the killing of dogs and then said: what is the trouble with them (the people of Medina)? How dogs are nuisance to them (the citizens of Medina)? He then permitted keeping of dogs for hunting and (the protection of) herds. In the hadith transmitted on the authority of Yahya, he (the Holy Prophet) permitted the keeping of dogs for (the protection of) herds, for hunting and (the protection of) cultivated land....." -- Sahih Muslim 3814

At the same time, he noted that if any dog's spittle marked clothes of a Muslim, he was not allowed to pray in such clothes, but should go and wash it.

"Another thing is important: more attention is given to animals than to the problems of human neighbours. There is a need to construct mosques, otherwise something bad will supersede spiritual development," Alyautdinov noted.

Threat noted.

Striking at the enforcement of non-Sharia law, on the heels of yesterday's large-scale attack targeting civilians in a market.

One commenter asked yesterday: "if the bombers are targeting Muslims [sic] populations how can we call it part of the global Islamic effort?"

Muslim-on-Muslim jihad is nothing new; in fact, it is one of the most common forms, from Somalia to Iraq to Pakistan. First, Muslims marked as apostates are, per Sharia, lawful for slaughter. It makes for a very easy excuse to kill in jihad. For that matter, jihadists looking to impose Sharia law -- or more of it -- will attempt to terrorize and demoralize any population not sufficiently on board with the plan in an effort to make them submit. And that is all the more true for those who have anything to do with the not-Islamic-enough local government.

"Attacks in southern Russia kill 2 police, wound 5," from the Associated Press, September 11:

MAKHACHKALA, Russia - Several attacks in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region have left two police officers dead and another five wounded, officials said Saturday.

The ministry's branch in the Caspian Sea province of Dagestan says one officer was gunned down late Friday on the outskirts of the regional capital, Makhachkala.

Another policeman was killed Friday in the province of Ingushetia west of Chechnya. The gunmen shot and killed him outside an auto repair shop in the region's main city of Nazran.

In another attack Saturday in the province of Kabardino-Balkariya, a truck carrying police hit a radio-controlled land mine, leaving five policemen wounded.

The attacks follow Thursday's suicide bombing near the central market of Vladikavkaz, the regional capital of the republic of North Ossetia, that killed 17 people and wounded more than 140. It was the most serious attack in Russia since the March subway bombings in Moscow that killed 40 people.

Funerals were held in Vladikavkaz Saturday for some of the victims. About 200 people also rallied in front of the regional government's headquarters, demanding that authorities offer a better protection for the population.

A car exploded in a courtyard of an apartment building in Vladikavkaz on Saturday, hurting no one but raising fears of a new terror attack. Authorities said the blast wasn't a terror attack, and apparently was linked to criminal disputes.

Russia's ethnically diverse North Caucasus region has been plagued by violence stemming from two separatist wars in Chechnya and fueled by poverty, official corruption and police abuses.

And jihad. You forgot jihad again.

Once again, jihadists target civilians directly, seeking to be "victorious with terror," as Muhammad described himself (Sahih Bukhari 4.52.220), and embracing the Qur'an's promise of paradise for those who "slay and are slain" in the cause of Allah (9:111).

Apologists will insist Islamic warfare forbids the killing of "innocents," and hope listeners will project their own cultural understanding of the term onto what they are hearing. In practice, the discussion of "innocents" in jihad attacks all too easily becomes an elaborate shell game relative to concept's usefulness in advancing Islam's agenda at the moment -- i.e., whether or not the casualties are bad enough for business (note how Hamas always seems to get a pass). Ultimately, it is informed in spirit by the Qur'an's dehumanization of unbelievers as "apes and swine" (Qur'an 2:63-66; 5:59-60; and 7:166) and the "vilest of creatures" (98:6).

As such, the victims in this market were apparently not innocent enough for this jihadist attack. "Suicide attack in Russia kills 17, wounds over 130," by Sergei Venyavsky for the Associated Press, September 9:

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia - A suicide car bomber hit the central market of a major city in Russia's North Caucasus on Thursday, killing at least 17 and wounding more than 130 people in one of the worst attacks in the volatile region in years, officials said.

The attacker detonated his explosives as he drove by the main entrance to the Vladikavkaz market, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry.

At least 17 people, including the suicide bomber, were killed and 133 were wounded in the explosion, said Alexander Pogorely of the Emergency Situations Ministry's branch in southern Russia. He said 98 of the injured were hospitalized, many in grave condition.

Russian television stations showed a shrapnel-littered square in front of the market, with blood stains on the pavement and rows of vehicles scarred by the blast.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent his regional envoy to Vladikavkaz to help coordinate efforts to help the victims. He urged the investigators to "do everything to track down the beasts, the scoundrels who conducted that terror attack."

No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, which was the deadliest such attack in the region since a double suicide bombing killed 12, mostly police officers, in the province of Dagestan in April. Twin suicide bombings on Moscow subway in March killed 40 people and wounded over 100.

The market and its surrounding blocks has been the target of several bomb attacks over the past dozen years, in which scores of people have died.

Vladikavkaz is the capital of the Russian republic of North Ossetia. Although it is less plagued by violence than some other republics in the region such as Chechnya and Dagestan, North Ossetia has experienced ethnic tensions and frequent attacks.

Which ethnicity is Islam again?

While the Miami Herald and Nicholas Kristof wring their hands about "Islamophobia" and wonder what on earth could cause what they claim to see as irrational hatred and fear, jihadists in Dagestan remind us yet again of the real reasons why so many people think that there is something about Islam that isn't all rainbows and moonbeams.

"Bomb Kills Five Soldiers in Russia's Caucasus," by Richard Boudreaux in the Wall Street Journal, September 5:

MOSCOW--A suicide bomber crashed a car packed with explosives on a military base in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan early Sunday, killing five soldiers and wounding 36 others in an attack blamed on the region's Islamic insurgency.

No group claimed responsibility for the blast. But the republic's governor, Magomedsalam Magomedov, speaking to Interfax news agency at the military base, said the incident "suggests that militants in the republic still have the power to conduct such treacherous attacks"...

"Pyatigorsk lies to the north of the most unstable mountainous regions of the Caucasus and is a genteel town normally untroubled by such violence."

Now, one may suppose, it's "restive." "Two blasts rock Russia's Caucasus region," from Radio Netherlands Worldwide, August 17 (thanks to Twostellas):

Two blasts hit Russia's Caucasus on Tuesday, one killing a policeman at a checkpoint and the other wounding about a dozen at a street cafe, in the latest attacks to rock the turbulent region.

In the first attack, a young man blew himself up near a checkpoint in the region of North Ossetia, killing himself and a policeman, officials said.

Hours later, at least 11 people were wounded in a suspected car bomb explosion outside a cafe in the spa town of Pyatigorsk, popular with Russian holidaymakers, in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains.

The Kremlin calls the Caucasus unrest its biggest domestic problem and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last month announced an ambitious drive to foster prosperity by enticing investors to the violence-torn region.

In North Ossetia an unidentified man walked up to the checkpoint close to the administrative border with neighbouring Ingushetia and detonated his charge, leaving one officer dead and wounding two others, Samir Sabatkoyev, spokesman for the regional interior ministry, told AFP.

"He detonated an unidentified explosive device," Sabatkoyev said. "He blew himself up," he added, noting it was "apparently" a suicide attack.

The two wounded policemen had "serious injuries", added Maria Gatsoyeva, a spokeswoman for regional investigators, speaking from the regional capital Vladikavkaz.

North Ossetia lies to the north of the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, recognised by Russia as independent after the brief 2008 war with Georgia over its status.

The area is part of the country's most volatile North Caucasus region, scene of the simmering guerrilla war between Russian forces and separatist rebels, and deadly attacks in the republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan are a near-daily occurrence.

The explosion in Pyatigorsk, called a "terrorist act" by the regional prosecutor, appeared to target a cafe.

"According to preliminary information, around 4:15 pm (1215 GMT) an improvised bomb hidden inside a Lada car exploded near one of the cafes on Kirov street," the regional prosecutor said in a statement.

The blast wounded 11 people according to the prosecutor, with one person in critical condition, although Russian news agencies put the toll as high as 30, with 29 hospitalised.

Glass windows within a radius of 200 metres (219 yards) around the outdoor cafe were broken and cars parked by the cafe were damaged by the power of the blast.

"At first it was thought that it was a gas explosion but then it became clear that a car parked outside the cafe had exploded," a local police source told ITAR-TASS.

"All the wounded were customers of the cafe," the source added.

Pyatigorsk lies to the north of the most unstable mountainous regions of the Caucasus and is a genteel town normally untroubled by such violence....

Symbolically, trying to plunge the area into darkness is rather appropriate for the jihadists. "Two killed in hydro plant terrorist attack," from ABC.au and Reuters, July 21 (thanks to Dumbledoresarmy):

Russia says Muslim militants are behind a deadly attack on a hydro electric power plant in the volatile North Caucasus region.

Militant fighters attacked the power plant overnight with a grenade launcher, according to security services.

Two guards were killed in the assault and as many as four bombs exploded in the plant's generator area.

The attack took place in the republic of Kabardino-Balkria in the North Caucasus bordering Chechnya and Dagestan.

Authorities say the attackers may also be behind other strikes on security services in the area.

There are frequent attacks in Russia's North Causasus region and militants seeking an independent Islamic state often target police stations and state infrastructure.

Media quoted emergencies ministry workers as saying it took almost three hours to contain a fire that followed the blast.

Clueless, and ultimately suicidal, dhimmitude from Russia. "Israel to Russia: Hamas is like the Chechen terrorists," from Haaretz, May 12:

The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday slammed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's call to involve Hamas in the Mideast peace process, and likened the organization to the Islamist Chechen rebels.

"Hamas is exactly like the Chechen terrorists and [Hamas chief Khaled] Meshal is exactly like Chechen leader Shamil Basayev," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"Developed countries cannot separate terrorists into good ones and bad ones based on their geographic location," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"Hamas murdered thousands of innocent people, many of them immigrants from the former USSR and even Russian citizens."

"Just as Israel unconditionally supported Russia in her struggle against Chechen terror, we expect equal treatment in our struggle against Hamas."

The Foreign Ministry also said that it was very disappointed that the Russian president met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Damascus on Tuesday....

As well it should have been.

The intrepid mujahedin, targeting Russian workers repairing a damaged broadcast tower. "Militants Kill 7 Russian Workers In North Caucasus," from RTTNews, May 13:

(RTTNews) - More than seven people have been killed in an attack by suspected Islamist insurgents in Russia's restive North Caucasus region, local officials told media on Thursday.

Those killed in the ambush which took place 80 kilometers south of Makhachkala, capital of Russia's Dagestan province, were carrying out repairs on a damaged broadcast mast when they were hit by a blast and a volley of gunfire.

Who damaged the broadcast mast? Were the workers targeted just because they were infidels, or because they were restoring a source of unapproved programming?

According to an official of the Dagestan unit of the federal security forces, police rushed to the scene and a shootout was currently on between security officials and the insurgents.

Lately, Islamist insurgency from Chechnya has spilled over into neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia and the region had witnessed a series of terror strikes blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for an independent "Caucasian Emirate."...