#13
Financial Times (UK)
November 19, 2001
Putin's search abroad for Chechen solutions may stoke
problems at home:
Sidelining the republic's leaders could push them further into the hands of
international Islamic groups
By ANDREW JACK
Since the terrorist attacks in the US two months ago, Russia has increasingly linked rebel activity in the breakaway republic of Chechnya and radical Islamic groups based outside the country.
A number of observers argue that such connections exist, and there are growing dangers if they are ignored. But they also worry that too much concentration on explanations abroad neglects the more important unresolved domestic factors contributing to the crisis in Chechnya.
In a briefing at the weekend to US journalists ahead of his summit with George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said there were fighters in Chechnya with links to "international criminal terrorist organisations" including al-Qaeda, who considered Osama bin Laden their leader.
He said 500 mercenaries "from Arab countries" had already been killed in Chechnya, many of them already reliably identified; and that a further 500-700 "from different Islamic states" were still fighting there.
In the last few weeks, flows of people in the other direction have also been highlighted.
Northern Alliance commanders have estimated that several hundred Chechens have been fighting on the side of the Taliban in Afghanistan, including many who are now trapped near the northern town of Konduz.
While Russian government officials have long emphasised the international connections - partly to justify their military clampdown in Chechnya and partly to explain why they have been unable to bring the conflict to an end - other more independent groups and individuals have also been adding their weight.
In August, a report by the institute of ethnology and anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences and Fewer, a London-based conflict resolution organisation, said "the leading force within the Chechen rebel groups are now the Islamic radicals and volunteers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan and Saudia Arabia".
Robert Ware, from the University of Southern Illinois, who studies the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan, said that while proof was difficult to obtain, he had heard many stories from reliable Muslim contacts of funding for radical Wahabi Muslims from organisations in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Many of those involved in local fighting reported that their foes were north Africans and Arabs.
Jabrail Gakayev, who heads the co-ordinating council for Chechen cultural and social organisations, argued that there were links to radical foreign organisations through the local rebel leaders Shamil Basayev, Ruslan Gelayev, and Khattab.
One problem is a lack of independently verifiable information.
Five men allegedly trained by Khattab were convicted on charges of plotting bomb attacks on Russian cities but the trial , in Stavropol, took place behind closed doors.
Even Mr Putin, in his remarks last Saturday appeared to dismiss the insinuated links between Chechens and the events of September 11 made by his security services, which claimed to have discovered in the republic a map of New York with "Jihad" written on it, and aircraft flying instructions in Arabic on a compact disk.
But Mr Gakayev argued that most of those fighting federal forces in Chechnya "do not even know about bin Laden and have no such links". He argued that they were frustrated by Russia's continued hard-line position in the republic, widespread human rights abuses, and continued lawlessness.
Meanwhile, Mr Putin's offer in September for Chechens to lay down their arms has been widely interpreted as an ultimatum rather than a serious effort at peace negotiations.
In sidelining those individuals who have at least some authority within the republic, such as Aslan Maskhadov, the elected president of the republic, the Fewer report warns that Russia may push Chechnya more than ever into the hands of precisely the international Islamic groups that Moscow has been denouncing as its main opponents.
Two sides start talks
Talks between the Russian government and the breakaway Chechen administration began in Moscow yesterday in the first serious dialogue between the two sides since 1999, Andrew Jack reports from Moscow. Akhmed Zakayev, deputy prime minister, met Viktor Kazantsev, special representative of Vladimir Putin, Russian president, at a government house outside Moscow.
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