Hey! It could happen!
Chechnya's pro-Moscow president said on Monday Saudi leaders had assured him their country had stopped its once hefty aid for Muslim separatist rebels in the region. After an official visit to the desert kingdom on which he met ministers and the crown prince, Akhmad Kadyrov said Saudi Arabia had now brought all its opaque charitable funds under state control.
| So any further donations will be state-approved, unlike previous donations, which were... ummm... state-approved. |
Saudi leaders had him given assurances any private money donated to help Chechnya would go into a fund to aid Russia's efforts to rebuild the region, not to the separatists, he said. "All the funds that worked independently have been brought under state control," Kadyrov told reporters. "People that want to help Chechnya, all their money will be under control."
| Meaning the Soddies are going to start a mosque/Islamic center building campaign in Chechnya? That should help. |
Saudi Arabia's charitable funds were accused of funding rebel groups throughout the world, but it cracked down under intense U.S. pressure after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, carried out by mainly Saudi hijackers.
| That was 2 1/2 years ago. Takes awhile for the effects of the crackdown to show, of course... |
Saudi Arabia, home of Islam's holiest shrines, previously backed Muslim separatists who have fought Russian rule for nine years. The rebels, who ruled a de facto independent Chechnya for three years after 1996, reacted furiously to Riyadh's receiving Kadyrov, who was elected by a landslide in an October poll criticised by Washington and the European Union. "May you be cursed for the fact that, at the hardest time for the Chechens, you have treacherously stabbed us in the back," said a statement on rebel Web site www.chechenpress.info.
"When were you honest? In 1997, when you kissed the hands and shoulders of the Chechen fighters, wiping away tears and saying that since the time of the Prophet there had not been such a Jihad (Islamic holy war) or now, when you shake the hand of the Jihad's worst enemy?"
| Ummm... Prob'ly neither time. |
Moscow sent troops back into Chechnya in 1999 and says the region is returning to normal under Kadyrov's rule, but servicemen die almost daily. President Vladimir Putin refuses to negotiate with rebels, who remain at large to carry out attacks. "We give great weight to the strengthening of mutual understanding over the Chechen problem with the Muslim world, one of the leaders of which is Saudi Arabia," Putin said in a letter to the Saudi government. Kadyrov, dismissed by opponents as Moscow's puppet, said he hoped to open a representative office for the Chechen government in Saudi Arabia to keep in touch with the government and to attract investment to boost his region's devastated economy. He also hoped to visit other Gulf states seen as the source for some of the private money that supports the separatists – Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
| I love it when they seethe. It just sets my teeny-tiny little heart all a-flutter... |
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