Telegraph:
Russian security forces have killed 49 Islamist militants and captured 30 others in a series of coordinated raids in the strife-ridden North Caucasus region, the country’s top anti-terrorism agency claimed on Sunday.
By Tom Parfitt, Moscow
5:45PM BST 21 Oct 2012
At least nine leaders of the insurgency – which is being waged across the region in an attempt to set up an Islamic caliphate – were said to have been killed and a bomb-making factory was discovered.
The National Anti-terrorism Committee (NAK) did not say over what period the raids were carried out in a statement released to Russian news agencies.
“A series of coordinated measures allowed for the suppression of the activity of a number of odious leaders, members of bandit groups and accomplices and allowed for a significant disruption of the bandits’ supply system,” the statement said.
If the figures are true, they are a reminder of the ongoing vitality of the insurgency on Russia’s southern perimeter, which grew out of separatists’ battles for the independence of Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s.
NAK said that among other strikes it had “neutralised” four leaders of the insurgency in the Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkariya who were allegedly responsible for killing a judge, two Federal Security Service operatives and numerous policemen.
Are Chechens a people, or a social construct like the Palestinians?
This is the perennial battle, the Left and Right supporting each other so that you are drawn out to fight for one or the other.
Chechens make good fertilizer when they are dead.
In Makhachkala ( capital city of the Republic of Dagestan ) video uploaded on Oct 19th 2012
Muslims protest in Dagestan video uploaded on Oct 19th
Russia is fighting the Islamists in some of the former USSR, but supporting them in other areas to weaken the west. Putin is playing a dangerous game for high stakes.