The Boston Bombers Linked To Chechen Militants ?

 

A Chechen fighter during the battle for Grozny.


Chechnya is home to some of the deadliest militant groups in the world, though so far they have primarily remained in Muslim countries. Chechnyan terrorist groups targeting the U.S. would represent a frightening new front.

Then it started to look like these suspects might not be linked to any Chechnyan groups.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov denies any link: "Any attempt to draw a connection between Chechnya and Tsarnaevs — if they are guilty — is futile."

The suspects' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, also denies that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarni represent the "peaceful" Chechen people in any way.

Neither of the brothers spent much if any time living in Chechnya.

Tamerlan, who was killed on Thursday night, made some anti-American comments and liked some jihadist videos on YouTube but only occasionally talked about Chechnya, like when he liked a hardliner Chechen rebel video.

Dzhokhar tweeted occasionally in support of Chechnya (e.g. "proud to be from #chechnya" and "i hold my own i got that #chechnyanpower").

Of course it's not clear that the brothers, if guilty, were acting alone.

In any case, let's hope they aren't linked to established Chechen militants. Here's why:

A predominantly-Muslim country, Chechnya has been a mess for decades and a big thorn in Russia's side.

It declared independence in 1991 in a military coup, and though the de facto leader, former Soviet general Dzhokhar Dudayev was popular, problems sprang up immediately. The country divided along sectarian lines, and many non-Chechen's (Russians, Ukranians, Albanians) fled, citing violent discrimination. Soon civil war broke out. Then the trouble began spilling across into Russia.

Russian troops invaded in 1994 — leading to a brutal and bloody counter-insurgency. The invasion of a Muslim country also gave the global call of militant Jihad to foreign fighters.

The battles intensified with a steady influx of grizzled Arab fighters, armed to the teeth and educated in the ways of guerilla warfare.

While Russians have responded brutally too, the Chechen militants are thought to be responsible for some terrible attacks on civilians, culminating in a 2004 attack on a Russian school that left more than 300 dead. You can read a list of other major attacks at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Although attacks on civilians have declined since 2004, the Russians do not seem to be winning the war.

From the Economist:

After two decades of political and military failure in this violent part of the world, the government in Moscow is losing its legitimacy there, and fundamentalist Islam, which had no purchase in Soviet days, has taken hold.

The U.S. State Department identifies the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade and the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment among various terrorist groups in Chechyna, according to CFR. Al-Qaeda also appears to be expanding its activity there.

American troops have also had run-ins with Chechans in combat.

Several Marines who encountered Chechans in Iraq and Afghanistan told Business Insider they were some of the most well-trained and formidable fighters.

"They can scrap. We came across a couple in Ramadi [Iraq]," one Marine told BI on condition of anonymity. "They don't give a f---, [they] would blow an IED at a market. Kids, civilians, doesn't matter."

One Marine put it simply, "If we get sucked into the Chechnyan conflict, we're gonna have a bad time."

Again, however, there is no sign that the Tsarnaevs were linked to Chechen militants, nor that Chechen militants are active outside of Muslim countries. Let's hope it stays that way.

What major attacks are the Chechen groups responsible for?

The most notorious and devastating attack came in September 2004, when Basayev ordered an attack on a school in Beslan, a town in North Ossetia. More than three hundred people died in the three-day siege, most of them children. There were thirty-two militants, though only three or four were Chechens. All but one of the militants were reportedly killed during the siege. Since then, violence has generally targeted individual officials and government offices rather than large groups of civilians. Attacks include:

    An August 1999 bombing of a shopping arcade and a September 1999 bombing of an apartment building in Moscow that killed sixty-four people.
    Two bombings in September 1999 in the Russian republic of Dagestan and southern Russian city of Volgodonsk. Controversy still surrounds whether these attacks were conclusively linked to Chechens.
    A bomb blast that killed at least forty-one people, including seventeen children, during a military parade in the southwestern town of Kaspiisk in May 2002. Russia blamed the attack on Chechen terrorists.
    The October 2002 seizure of Moscow's Dubrovka Theater, where approximately seven hundred people were attending a performance. Russian Special Forces launched a rescue operation, but the opium-derived gas they used to disable the hostage-takers killed more than 120 hostages, as well as many of the terrorists. Basayev took responsibility for organizing the attack, and three Chechen-affiliated groups are thought to have been involved.
    A December 2002 dual suicide bombing that attacked the headquarters of Chechnya's Russian-backed government in Grozny. Russian officials claim that international terrorists helped local Chechens mount the assault, which killed eighty-three people.
    A three-day attack on Ingushetia in June 2004, which killed almost one hundred people and injured another 120.
    Street fighting in October 2005 that killed at least eighty-five people. The fighting was in the south Russian city of Nalchik after Chechen rebels assaulted government buildings, telecommunications facilities, and the airport.
    An attack on the Nevsky Express, used by members of the business and political elite, in November 2009 killed twenty-seven people.
    In March 2010, two female suicide bombers detonated bombs in a Moscow metro station located near the headquarters of the security services, killing thirty-nine people. Islamist Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for the bombing; he had also claimed responsibility for the derailment of the Nevsky Express.
    Two days after the metro station bombing in March 2010, two bombs exploded in the town of Kizlyar, in Russia's North Caucasus, killing at least twelve people.

Are there links between Chechen groups and al-Qaeda?

Experts say there are several ties between the al-Qaeda network and Chechen groups. A Chechen warlord known as Khattab is said to have met with Osama bin Laden while both men were fighting the 1979-89 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Alexander Vershbow, a U.S. ambassador to Russia, said shortly after September 11, 2001, "We have long recognized that Osama bin Laden and other international networks have been fueling the flames in Chechnya, including the involvement of foreign commanders like Khattab." Khattab was killed in April 2002.

Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted for his involvement in the September 11 attacks, was reported by the Wall Street Journal to be formerly "a recruiter for al-Qaeda-backed rebels in Chechnya." Chechen militants reportedly fought alongside al-Qaeda and Taliban forces against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in late 2001. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan was one of the only governments to recognize Chechen independence.

Russian authorities, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly stressed the involvement of international terrorists and Bin Laden associates in Chechnya--in part, experts say, to generate Western sympathy for Russia's military campaign against the Chechen rebels. Russia's former defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, claimed that a videotape of Khattab meeting with bin Laden had been found in Afghanistan, but Russia has not aired the tape publicly.