Some veteran anti-Communists in America actually support this Russian jihad; they’re still fighting the last war. Meanwhile, even the Russians themselves, with their support for Iran, don’t seem to recognize the implications of what is going on. From the Times Online, with thanks to all who sent this in:
THE diehard gang of Muslim extremists responsible for last week’s attack on the southern Russian city of Nalchik consisted mainly of local militants intent on creating a strict Islamic state independent of Moscow, according to security sources in the region.
The disclosure that the gunmen were not sent from the war-torn republic of Chechnya but belonged to a group from Kabardino-Balkaria, the Russian republic of which Nalchik is the capital, will be of great concern to the Kremlin.
It provides alarming evidence that far from dying down “” as claimed by President Vladimir Putin “” the bloody Chechen conflict is spreading.
“Most of the militants who were killed and those caught alive are local,” said an officer with the Nalchik anti-terrorism police unit. ” The ferocity of the attacks has shocked the city.”
The onslaught, which turned the town of 280,000 into a war zone, was the most daring raid by pro-Chechen Islamic militants since last year’s Beslan school siege in which 330 hostages were killed. It came less than a month before parliamentary elections in Chechnya, hailed by Putin as evidence that the region is becoming stable.