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| Caucasus |
| Abu Walid masterminded Moscow booms |
| 2004-02-08 |
| A SAUDI Islamic militant based in the breakaway republic of Chechnya is suspected of being behind the bomb attack on the Moscow metro that killed 39 people and wounded more than 130. Abu-al-Walid al-Ghamdi, 36, has been identified by the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, as one of the most powerful figures in the Chechen rebel leadership. As the commander of several hundred Arabs fighting alongside the rebels, he is thought to have been responsible for a wave of suicide bomb attacks that have killed more than 200 people in just over a year. He is also believed to have been one of the masterminds of the October 2002 Moscow theatre siege, which ended with the deaths of 40 Chechen terrorists and 129 of their hostages. Walid, a follower of the Wahhabi sect that dominates worship in Saudi Arabia, signalled the determination of Chechen extremists to take their war against the Kremlin to Russian soil when he broadcast a statement from the republic last year on the Arab television network Al-Jazeera. "If operations in Chechnya continue they will harm Chechen people, so we have decided to export operations inside Russia," declared Walid, a bearded man with long black hair who wore a uniform and spoke against the backdrop of a Chechen flag. "We consider all Russian people warriors because they elected this leadership when it pledged to crush the Chechen people. God willing they will pay for their fight with their blood and their sons." Fugitive Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov yesterday denied responsibility for Friday’s metro bombing, the worst of its kind in Moscow. However, he does not speak for more radical rebel commanders such as Walid and Shamil Basayev, the militant Chechen with whom the Saudi is said to have plotted the theatre siege. Despite the ferocity of the blast, there was an unexpected air of normality yesterday at the Avtozavodskaya metro station, which is lined with white marble and Stalinist mosaics glorifying Soviet workers. Trains were running to schedule and there was no obvious police presence. A bucket filled with red roses and carnations at the entrance to the station and a lingering smell of burnt bodies were the only reminders of the carnage of 24 hours earlier. Police were questioning survivors and studying footage from a surveillance camera of two women suspected of being suicide bombers and a man believed to have been their accomplice, standing on the platform with two suitcases. Shortly before the explosion, the man had apparently approached a member of staff and said: "You’ll have a party on your hands." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #4 oops...I was just linking along and thought this was from today. Wondered why there wasn't any real coverage of this. |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-18 2:08:07 PM |
| #3 and a lingering smell of burnt bodies were the only reminders of the carnage of 24 hours earlier That's nice. That's all that's left of those real people who just happened to be there the day before. A lingering smell. |
| Posted by: B 2004-04-18 2:06:36 PM |
| #2 Though I don't wish it on them, ah what the heck I do, I wonder when ALQ is going to do something nasty in Paris or Berlin? I wonder if a mind set change would be in order for our "allies" then. Can you see the French if their beloved Eiffel tower goes down in a pile of twisted steel? |
| Posted by: dataman1 2004-2-8 8:19:56 PM |
| #1 We consider all Russian people warriors because they elected this leadership when it pledged to crush the Chechen people. Well, what a coincidence! The Russian people consider all the Chechen people to be warriors too. |
| Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-2-8 7:51:00 PM |