>
>Are you in Moscow right now? If so, what have you
>observed? If you are or are not in Moscow right now, what
>is the general mood on the street?
>---
>Sent from UnionMail Service [http://mail.union.org.za]
I'm in Washington DC for the next couple of weeks, but I am helping a coworker edit her news updates on the subject (she can't get anything in English, so she's paraphrasing Russian news reports in English). I'm following it pretty closely. Seems pretty damn scary.
The Chechen "government" is claiming it is a provocation carried out by the FSB. (They also claim this about Sept. 11.) At the same time as the people holding the hostages say they are worlord Basayev's men (and women). This really illustrates how fractured the Chechens are and how little control Maskhadov has -- this is going to make the non-jihadi Chechen nationalists look really, really bad. It's a nightmare for Maskhadov. Good luck getting the west on your side now. Not that people like Basayev are interested in peace, he and Khattab are the guts who invaded Dagestan and started the second war in teh first place.
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