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Caucasus | |||
Abu Walid: Saudi-Born Leader of Chechen Rebels | |||
2004-02-09 | |||
A Saudi-born warrior so zealously Muslim that he’s traumatized by even touching nonbelievers has risen to the top echelon of rebels in Chechnya, Russian officials and rebel sources say, a symbol of how a once-secular fight has come under the influence of radical Islam. To the Russian security services, the rebel commander known as Abu Walid embodies Chechnya’s place in the chain of international terrorism - a connection they stress to win Western support for their military campaign in the southern Russian region.
The USSR used to appoint a political officer for the same reason, to make sure everyone followed the party line. "That’s the one that communicates with Abu Walid," rather than the unit’s military commander, said a Muslim in southern Russia who serves as a liaison between the rebels and supporters in the West.
A Saudi with moneybags, gee, what a concept. "The (Chechen) military leadership has recognized him," echoed Sergei Ignatchenko, the spokesman for the Federal Security Service, adding that Abu Walid had taken over Khattab’s post of military emir. Do you get a special turban with that? In November, Al-Jazeera television broadcast fragments of a videotaped statement in which Abu Walid threatened to carry Chechnya’s war outside the republic and target military facilities in Russian territories with large Muslim populations. He also defended the use of female suicide bombers, saying the women were seeking revenge for the alleged killing of their husbands and children by Russian forces in Chechnya. It’s one of the few public appearances by the reclusive fighter.
"Ugh, unclean infidel cooties" That extreme piety, the liaison said, has won supporters. "Lots of young people (in Chechnya) are turning to the Wahhabis. There are lots of Err, what happened to those battalions? At the same time, there’s widespread agreement that Islam is increasingly a motivating factor in what used to be a secular struggle for independence. "Chechnya used to be on the periphery of the Islamic world. That’s no longer true," said Alexei Malashenko, a specialist on Islam at Moscow’s Carnegie Center. "Here’s the paradox: They receive less money, they get less help, there are fewer Arabs, but the feeling that they’re Muslims ... is stronger." I think we should help them feel better about themselves by cutting off all their money, ending their outside help and killing more of them. The last guy standing is gonna feel great. That sense of Islamic solidarity has filled the ranks of fighters with men from other southern Russian republics. Of the estimated 1,500-2,000 die-hard rebels in the mountains of southern Chechnya, more than half are from neighboring Dagestan, and there are fighters from the Russian republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessiya, as well as from the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan, said Shamil Beno, a former Chechen foreign minister who heads a foundation in Moscow. Did the local Chechen boys all get bumped off, or did they get a better offer to work outside the country? He said the role of Abu Walid and other Arabs in Chechnya today was actually minimal. "What’s more important is that the Arabs’ mental view of resistance or struggle has begun to predominate," Beno said. "They’ve naturally played a role in the slipping of the Chechen resistance into terror, which is damaging the resistance." Well, they’ve made certain the Russians won’t let them join the opposition party, that’s for sure. | |||
Posted by:Steve |
#1 Ahhh, the Howard Hughes of the islamists. Or Michael Jackson. |
Posted by: Anonymous2U 2004-2-9 11:02:03 PM |