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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
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| 2005-08-04 |
| Chechnya took a step closer to its predominant Islamic faith yesterday by announcing that Europe's largest mosque would be built in the shattered capital, Grozny, and that "one-armed bandit" gaming machines would be banned across the republic. Ramzan Kadyrov, the deputy prime minister, whose private army is said to run Chechnya under brutal martial law, demonstrated his Islamic credentials when he gave the country's estimated 1,000 gaming halls a week to close. The Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying: "One-armed bandits are against Islamic norms ... I give these bloodsucking businessmen one week. If they don't comply, I will smash their installations myself." The machines "acted like drugs" on children. His plans included a 10,000-capacity mosque. "Grozny has not built a single mosque since the 1930s, when all mosques were destroyed," Mr Kadyrov said in reference to the Stalinist purge of religion. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #6 And Fred, if you're out there... is Ramzan Kadyrov a good candidate to add to the searchable database? |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-08-04 18:44 |
| #5 Steve, C-Low: Y'all do realize that Kadyrov is an ally of the Russians who is fighting against Basayev and Dooku and company... I'd suggest searching on his name in the thingey in the upper-right-hand-corner... y'all can then read about how ruthless this guy allegedly is. I could add, as an aside to any of the "we need more ruthlessness" crowd who might be reading this, that the Russians had been following those procedures for about the past five years or so, in a country with one-twenty-eighth the surface area of Iraq and one-twenty-sixth the population of Iraq. And there's still a significant terrorism problem there. |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-08-04 17:56 |
| #4 hmmm, building in any proverbial flys on the wall? What a wonderful window of opportunity here |
| Posted by: Jan 2005-08-04 13:42 |
| #3 The machines "acted like drugs" on children. All together now - It's All About The ChildrenTM... |
| Posted by: Raj 2005-08-04 11:29 |
| #2 One-armed bandits are against Islamic norms That's gonna piss off Abu Hamza. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-08-04 10:22 |
| #1 No No The Chechens are fighting the Russians they although a little over zealous at times dont give a flying f*ck about any rules of war. Mosques are just another target of oportunity. The US is the only country in the world that feels compelled to fight with one hand tied behind thier back. |
| Posted by: C-Low 2005-08-04 10:14 |