Another Chechen Jihad Update: "Militancy Reportedly Rising Outside Chechnya," from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, with thanks to Twostellas:
Russia; August 25, 2006 -- The head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) says militants are becoming more active in southern Russian republics neighboring Chechnya.Nikolai Patrushev attributed the change to successes scored by security forces against militants in Chechnya itself.
He says that over the past seven months, militants carried out 18 "terrorist" acts in Ingushetia and 11 in North Ossetia, twice as many as in the same period of 2005.
It is possible that in this case Patrushev may not just be whistling in the dark to keep his spirits up. It makes no sense for Muslim attacks to be rising in Russian North Ossetia (South Ossetia is in Georgia, beyond the watershed); Ossetia is a Christian majority republic with no love for the Chechens, especially since hundreds of Ossetian children were abused and murdered at Beslan, because, exactly, they were Christian. So, from what I know, Ossetia is not a natural place for jihad. If the Chechens have been multiplying attacks in that part of the Caucasus, it may well be that they are being squeezed like toothpaste away from the Chechen territory proper.
Incidentally, OT: something I learned recently and that we should all find very interesting. Many of us will have heard that Uganda has been tormented for years by a religious rebellion in its north, called the Lord's Liberation Army. Now I was under the impression, like I suppose many people, that this insurrection had begun as a degenerate and tribalized Christian movement of sorts; but now it turns out that, while that was indeed its origin, its leaders soon found that Islam was more sympathetic to their way of thinking (which included looting, forced recruiting of children, enslavement and massacre) and converted; and the Lord's Liberation Army is pretty much a Muslim outfit now, from what I hear.
Maybe the Russians (and China) will finally understand why Iranian president Jim Jones Ahmadinejad should not be permitted to get nuclear weapons. Ultimately he wants to turn the Mideast into Jonestown and many are already drinking his kool-ade. It's rule or ruin with him and a nuclear holocaust in the region will make chernobyl look mild.
http://www.ki4u.com/chernobyl.gif
For anyone who missed it, this is an absolutely gripping (and lengthy - about 30 printed pages) account of what went on inside the Beslan school massacre:
http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2006/060610_mfe_June_06_School_1.html
Here's an even bigger story from Russia (I've already told JW via their contact link):
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/08/1051a2c7-c5f1-44ce-bb7a-a4d3488155b6.html
putin and his chinese buds will get paid from their love child "iranian prez" in spades. Russia and China in bed with the muslim will bite them back, already has, and more to follow.
I normally support Moscow in the Chechen conflict, as well as Beijing in Xinxiang. However, given their backing of the nuke ambitions of Iran, question now arises - should I?
Paolo
The roots of the conflict between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan government lie in the complex religious traditions of the Acholi people of northern Uganda, in the history of ethnic violence and mistrust that has characterized Ugandan politics for much of the past few decades, and in the troubled relationship between the governments of Uganda and Sudan. The Lord's Resistance Army has long identified itself with a Christian religious tradition and witchcraft. It is led by Joseph Kony, who claims to be in communication with the Holy Spirit. The Lord's Resistance Army receives military assistance and other support from the militantly Islamic Sudanese government. The Sudanese government aids the Lord's Resistance Army in return for assistance in fighting the rebel Sudan P eople's Liberation Army (SPLA), and also in apparent retaliation for Ugandan government support of the SPLA.