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| Caucasus |
| Chechen hard boyz tied to al-Qaeda |
| 2004-09-03 |
| Holmes! How do you do it? A cultlike network of militantly Islamic Chechen women known as "Black Widows" is playing a critical role in what increasingly looks like a coordinated wave of terrorist attacks on civilian targets around Russia, investigators and intelligence analysts now believe. The new series of attacks—including the seizure of a school today by a team of more than a dozen suicide-belt-wearing terrorists near the Chechen border—also raises fresh questions about a relationship that for years has gotten little attention from U.S. intelligence officials: the links between Chechen militants and the broader international movement spearheaded by Al Qaeda. Indeed, a close reading of the recent report by the September 11 commission reveals 27 different references to connections between Al Qaeda and the Chechen rebels. The Chechen conflict was such an important cause to Islamic militants throughout the Middle East and Western Europe during the 1990s that, according to the commission's report, many of the 9/11 hijackers themselves originally intended to fight in Chechnya before migrating to Afghanistan. The use of female suicide bombers has not previously been a tactic employed by the strict Wahhabi-trained Muslims of Al Qaeda. But the recent tactics in Russia, including the actions of the Black Widows raises concerns that that could be changing. At least two female militants are believed to be part of the terrorist team holding the estimated 300 hostages, many of them children, at the school in Ossetia near Chechnya today. But if the team in today's school attack is predominantly men, Black Widows are the principle suspects in a separate incident near a Moscow subway station on Tuesday and in two suspicious plane crashes last week. U.S intelligence sources say that Islamic militants in Chechnya now appear to have recruited women to work as frontline terrorists. The experts say that in the past this is something that most (but not all) other violent Islamic groups, particularly groups connected with Al Qaeda, seem to have been reluctant to do. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |