2ND LEAD: Russia-Chechnya Conflict Set to Intensify

THE MUSLIM WEEKLY 2004
Events over the past week once again bring the Russian-Chechnyan conflict to the forefront of the global media. It began on August 24 with the twin air explosion, followed by the election of Moscow backed Alu Alkhanov (Chechnya's top police official) as President 5 days later. The next day an explosion rocked Moscow's Kashirskoye metro station killing more than 10 people and now we have a school under seige in the North Ossetian town of Beslan with negotiations underway as we go to press.

"In essence, a war has been declared on us, with an invisible enemy and no front line," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov has stated. The situation is so grim that President Bush has called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to offer the United States's support in resolving the hostage-taking at the school, emphasising that Washington and Moscow are fighting international terrorism shoulder-to-shoulder.

Web sources indicate that responsibility for events have been taken by the ”Islambouli Brigades” (Khaled Islambouli was an Egyptian army officer who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981). A statement said the bombing was a blow against Putin, “who slaughtered Muslims time and again.” Putin has refused to negotiate with rebels in predominantly Muslim Chechnya who have fought Russian forces for most of the past decade, saying they must be wiped out.

The current siege is thought to involve 17 attackers, both male and female wrapped in suicide-bomb belts. Children and their parents, approximately 120 people who were in the school to mark the beginning of the new school year, have been taken hostage. reportedly including 200 children, They have threatened to kill them or blow up the building if it is attacked by Russian troops. Two people were reported killed. including a father who had brought his child to the school and was shot when he tried to resist the raiders. A gunman was also killed and nine people were injured report Interfax.

Meanwhile moderate Chechen separatists accused Russia's special forces of spreading misinformation and denied any link to the group. Furthermore, Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov has denied that his forces are involved in the siege. Various influential people in Chechnya have also condemned the attacks, nevetheless, many Chechens say those behind the attacks are simply the distraught wives, sisters and mothers of men killed or brutalised by Russian soldiers.

For the past decade Russia has been engaged in a brutal conflict in Chechnya, where separatists have employed a range of tactics to put pressure on their enemy and draw the world's attention to their fight for independence. On the ground, much of the housing in the capital Grozny and other cities has been destroyed and services such as electricity, phones and water are nearly nonexistent. Violent crime and kidnappings are rampant, and thousands have fled the region.

Returning Chechnya to normalcy will be the work of a decade, Alexander Sharavin, a retired colonel who heads the Institute of Political and Military Analysis. "No miracle cure has been found," Sharavin said. "I think everybody knows it will take painstaking, careful work ... until we raise a new generation of Chechen citizens, or rather of Russian citizens of Chechen origin, we cannot speak of normalization." Other Russian analysts comment that these young men and women fighting a 'Jihad' have now eclipsed the more moderate pro-independence fighters who formed the core of the Chechen rebel movement in the 1990s.

In the interim, one thing has not changed: corruption in Russia is thought to be so rife that Chechen fighters can make their way through any number of heavily armed checkpoints simply by paying bribes. One Chechen driver recently estimated that the price of ferrying a bomb through a Russian army checkpoint was 500 roubles (£9 or $17).

Elsewhere, world leaders have condemned the siege and the UN security Council is currently considering involvement in the negotiations. The hostage-takers on their part are demanding: Release of fighters from Ingushetia prisons, withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and negotiations with top regional officials.

For those parents of the children held hostage the anguish is understandable, "Let them go, they have nothing to do with it, they are not to blame," cried one woman. "Let us replace our children."