Chechnya: Stronghold of Terrorism?The Kremlin is hoping for greater foreign understanding of its military operations in Chechnya following the terrorist attacks in the USA. But Chechen separatists should not be equated with terrorists like Usama bin Ladin. Aside from this, Russia's use of military force in the republic continues to seem excessive.
Since the attacks of September 11, Russia has intensified its efforts to persuade the rest of the world that its military operations in Chechnya are a praiseworthy struggle against international terrorism. In view of the Islamist terrorist attacks in the USA, the moment would appear to be more favorable than ever for such an attempt, and Russia's strategy is having its effect. Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schröder recently called for a "more differentiated evaluation" of events in Chechnya, which has been widely seen as an attempt to close his eyes to the bloodshed in the Northern Caucasus even more tightly than before. In the USA, a presidential spokesman has declared that it is beyond doubt that international terrorists with ties to Usama bin Ladin are operating in Chechnya. This is a notable turnabout compared to last April's State Department report on terrorism, which declared that there were no links between terrorism and Chechen separatism.
Spotlight on Military Objectives
But how justified is it when Russian officials routinely characterize Chechen rebels as terrorists and bandits? Moscow's view is based mainly on three arguments. First of all, the Chechens' combat methods - bombs and surprise attacks - are regarded as terrorism. Dozens of Russian soldiers are killed each month by such methods. Looked at soberly, however, these are not acts of terrorism but typical guerrilla tactics which are directed against military targets, as a rule. The separatists have not engaged in the murder of civilians for the purpose of general intimidation. The Chechen civilians who become guerrilla targets are usually representatives of the administration installed by Moscow - collaborators with a regime of occupation, from the separatists' point of view. At the same time, such murders are controversial even among supporters of Chechen independence, since they intensify internal Chechen feuds and generate a vicious cycle of blood vengeance. Part of the same picture are the murders of moderate Islamic clerics, which can hardly be regarded as anything but the crimes of religious fanatics. Most likely responsible for these acts are the Islamist groups which managed to elude the control of the Chechen government of President Maskhadov during the period of quasi-independence between 1997 and 1999, and have really been operating on their own since the outbreak of Russia's second Chechen war. Maskhadov, formally the "supreme commander" of opposition forces, only recently sent a written order to his units in which he categorized acts of vengeance against civilians as inhumane and stated that he was also categorically opposed to terrorist attacks inside Russia.
As a second argument, Moscow speaks of international terrorism because there are volunteers from the Muslim world fighting on the Chechen side. They are under the command of a Saudi named Khattab, they characterize their battle as a "jihad" and use the Internet to spread Islamist ideas much like those familiar from such other areas of conflict as Kashmir, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Extensive funding reportedly flows in from the Islamic world through Khattab, which no doubt gives him disproportionate influence within the guerrilla ranks. But experts are hesitant to state how large the force under his command may be.
What does appear to be certain, however, is that Russian assertions that the "Arabs" constitute the backbone of the Chechen rebels are pure propaganda. Moscow is using such statements to divert attention from the fact that the Chechen conflict is largely homemade. If foreigners really predominate among the guerrillas, the Russian military should have an easy time proving it on the basis of rebels killed in action. Moreover, the Russians themselves admit that one big problem is that many rebels lead an unobtrusive life in their villages by day and cannot be distinguished from the rest of the populace. Yet outwardly Arabs are immediately distinguishable from Chechens, and thus have a clear disadvantage under conditions of partisan warfare. That is doubtless why they operate mostly in the Vedeno Valley, where Russian rule is extremely tenuous.
No Concrete Facts
Moscow also constantly points to alleged relations between Khattab and Usama bin Ladin. Such links would hardly be surprising, since Khattab also formerly fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a number of Chechen separatists went through Afghan training camps, and the Taliban are the only regime in the world to recognize Chechnya's independence. But if one pushes for concrete facts on ties between bin Ladin and the Chechen guerrillas, facts about financial streams and weapons assistance, the Moscow authorities suddenly become very quiet. The Kremlin's Information Department, the major channel for Russian propaganda on the Chechnya question, is unable to provide any details. The office of the State Prosecutor, which also recently issued a report on a bin Ladin connection, refuses to comment on the grounds that this is an "ongoing investigation" - clearly a pretext, since Russian prosecutors are usually very easygoing about secrets of investigations. A written query to the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), successor to the KGB, also runs into a roadblock. After being passed from desk to desk for a week, and ostensibly requiring consideration "at the very highest levels," it draws a most original response: nothing can be said, out of consideration for the CIA. This is allegedly because there has been an agreement with the FSB's American colleagues to treat all information about bin Ladin's ties to terrorist groups as strictly confidential. But as long as Moscow can put no facts on the table, the suspicion remains that Chechen links to bin Ladin, if not actually invented, are at least being greatly inflated.
On the other hand, the Russians rightly point to training camps for militant Islamists, run by Khattab, which functioned in three locations in the Chechen Republic until the Russian invasion of 1999. According to eye-witnesses, for example, the grounds of a former children's camp near the village of Sershen-Yurt housed young men from Arab countries, Central Asia and the Caucasus. While there, they clearly not only engaged in Koran studies but also received instruction in combat and bomb-making. The Chechen government proved impotent with regard to Khattab's activities. In the summer of 1998, President Maskhadov declared a state of emergency, expelled the Arabs and declared the three training camps illegal. But his decrees were simply ignored. Russia, completely preoccupied with itself and its own internal chaos at the time, missed the opportunity to strengthen Maskhadov's hand in that power struggle.
Bombs from Other Republics
The third reason why many Russians regard Chechnya as a stronghold of terrorism is the series of bombings in September 1999, when within a period of a few days saboteurs blew up four apartment buildings in Moscow, Buinaksk and Volgodonsk, killing more than 300 people. Although no one claimed credit for that series of terrorist attacks, the authorities immediately blamed Chechen groups - and a few days later, the Kremlin ordered its troops to march into the secessionist republic. Now, two years later, the official investigation of the tragedy is still far from completed. In the case of the Buinaksk attack, a court sentenced four alleged low-level helpers to long prison terms, and another trial is proceeding under strict secrecy. In the aftermath of the explosions, the authorities arrested more than 10 people and issued a list of about 30 suspects. Oddly, not one of those persons is of Chechen nationality. The Russians believe that Achimes Gotchyayev, a young Islamist from the North Caucasus republic of Karachayevo-Cherkesiya, was the organizer of the Moscow attacks. According to the official version, he is a disciple of Khattab and was paid by him for committing the deeds, after which he went underground. Two of the suspected bombers of Volgodonsk are also from Karachayevo-Cherkesiya, as were the sugar sacks that served as camouflage for the explosives. By contrast, according to a court ruling the attack in Buinaksk was the work of Dagestanis.
The planning of a fifth, prematurely aborted attack in the city of Pyatigorsk was also the work of men from Dagestan. If Russian intelligence is to be believed, all leads pointed to the "Arab," Khattab. But there are a good many loose ends remaining. Suspicions that the Russian authorities could have staged the terrorism themselves were particularly aroused by a strange development in the city of Ryasan, where police found suspicious sugar sacks and detonators in a basement. Hundreds of residents were evacuated. Initially, the local police reported that explosives had been found in the sacks. Some days later, however, the FSB director addressed the media and declared that the whole thing had been an "exercise" to test the alertness of the police.
Moderate Politicians Need Strengthening
Against this background, the West would be well advised to neither romanticize the Chechen guerrillas as freedom fighters, nor to equate them with terrorists of the Usama bin Ladin ilk. There is a broad diversity of forces within the Chechen independence movement, of which Islamists prone to violence are only one. An intelligent Russian policy would be to aim at strengthening a moderate leader like Maskhadov vis-ŕ-vis the extremists and build him up as a negotiating partner, instead of simply branding him a criminal. Recently opened telephone contacts between representatives of the Kremlin and those of Maskhadov provide a glimmer of hope in that direction. Understandably, Moscow wants nothing to do with warlords like Khattab, who is simply using Chechnya as a vehicle for his plans of Islamic world revolution. The fact that this warlord was able to dig himself in with the Chechen separatist movement has proven fatal for Chechnya. But also contributing greatly to that republic's tragedy has been the disproportionate use of force by Russian troops. They have brought unspeakable suffering to the civilian population and, in the name of combating terrorism, have wrought a level of destruction which not even terrorists would have conceived of. To that, the Chechen capital of Grozny, utterly destroyed by artillery and bombing, bears lasting witness.
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