Terror in Russia. No end to it

Violence in Russia says more about failure at home than global terror

WHENEVER the feuds of the Russian Caucasus turn into a hideous drama affecting hundreds of previously uninvolved people, only two things are certain. One is that Russia's rulers will - as anyone in their position would - use the occasion to remind the world of their foes' incorrigible wickedness. The other is that, even in a land where manipulating events is a tradition, the drama will spin out of control, with huge, unexpected consequences.

About 350 children and adults were the unwilling players in the horror story that began unfolding on September 1st when 19 people took over a school in the town of Beslan in North Ossetia. The captors' demand was for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya, and the release of Chechen rebels captured after they had attacked nearby Ingushetia in June. The hostage-takers vowed to kill 50 children if any member of the gang was slain. In an early success for negotiations, 26 people were freed; President Vladimir Putin said the captives' lives were an absolute priority.

The outside world swiftly offered Russia the solidarity it wanted. The UN Security Council condemned the hostage-takers “in the strongest terms”, and President George Bush was said to have offered “support in any form” from America against “callous” terror.

For ordinary Russians, the incident brought chilling memories of at least seven incidents over the past decade in which Chechens have taken large numbers of hostages to draw attention to their separatist struggle. The first such drama, at a hospital in June 1995, propelled Viktor Chernomyrdin, a doveish prime minister, to prominence and led to a peace deal - though 100 people died in the rescue attempt; but a similar hospital stand-off six months later was ended with force alone. So was the siege at a Moscow theatre in 2002, in which 129 hostages died, almost all from gas used by troops.

As Mr Putin presented things, the grisly start to the school year in Beslan was the latest twist in a wider spiral of terror. All the recent attackers, he implied, have had an international flavour.

Little is known, even among people whose business it is to know, about the Islambouli Brigades, a group that reportedly claimed responsibility for this week's suicide bomb at a Moscow metro station - and last week's explosions aboard two Russian airliners, incidents that together claimed about 100 lives. The hostage-takers in Beslan have claimed allegiance to Shamil Basayev, the leader of the 1995 siege, who is himself known to have some links with international terrorists. Despite these vague connections, the recent wave of attacks is largely the result of Russia's home-grown conflict.

The plane bombs and the Moscow blast, like several others not claimed by outside groups, seem to have been planted by young Chechen women bent on suicide; one, like many “black widows” before her, had had a brother abducted by Russia's forces. The hostage-takers include people from both Chechnya and Ingushetia. In the former place and increasingly in the latter, people have suffered from the carte blanche given to Russia's security forces to kidnap, torture and kill people.

The only signs of the Islambouli group's existence are its two purported statements on a militant website, plus a previous one, attributed to the “Islambouli Brigades of al-Qaeda”, which says it tried to kill Pakistan's prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz, in July. Such evidence was, for Mr Putin, “a fact confirming the link between certain forces operating in Chechnya and international terrorism”. The leaders of France and Germany, appearing with him hours before the metro bombing and two days after a farcical election in Chechnya, were supportive. Jacques Chirac said Russia was striving for a political solution in Chechnya.

In fact, Russia's failure to do anything of the sort is part of the background to the latest attacks. Ties between Chechens and global terror exist; but blaming the latest attacks on that alone will not help.

Violence in Russia says more about failure at home than about global terror.

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