\
>
> Do the Chechens like the Arab jihadis? Hitchens
> (not the most reliable
> source) claimed that the Kosovars didn't.
>
> -- Luke
>
If you were a Chechen, would you like the people who got you into a bloody war and turned your republic into a hellhole? More people fled Chechnya from 1996-1999 than in the First Chechen War.
Militants a Small Minority in Chechnya September 1, 2004 By STEVE GUTTERMAN
MOSCOW (AP) - Chechnya is often called a breakaway republic, but the militant separatists who have harried Russian forces for more than a decade and struck with bold attacks within and beyond the mostly Muslim region's borders are a relatively small segment of a population long tired of bloodshed.
Russian authorities say rebel numbers have shrunk to the low thousands after a decade or war and chaos, and while some analysts say that figure is low, most residents of the region do not overtly back the militants.
``People are simply weary of war,'' said Alexander Sharavin, director of Institute of Political and Military Analysis in Moscow. He estimated that 10 percent to 30 percent of Chechnya's population of some 1 million support the militants, with the higher numbers in the mountainous south where the rebels are concentrated.
The militants have been ``using their limited forces masterfully,'' Sharavin said Tuesday.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the seizure of a school and hundreds of hostages in the neighboring North Ossetia region Tuesday.
But suspicion has fallen on Chechens or people with ties to the region - particularly female suicide bombers - also blamed for explosions that brought down two planes last week and a series of other attacks that have killed hundreds of people in Moscow and in and around Chechnya in the past two years.
Some of the young women suspected in suicide bombings are believed to have lost husbands or other male relatives in the fighting between rebels and Russian troops, who have been widely blamed for human rights abuses.
Some Arab fighters have joined the Chechen militants, including rebel commander Abu Walid, a zealously Muslim Saudi-born warrior, and Omar Ibn al-Khattab - now dead - another Saudi-born militant who joined top rebel warlord Shamil Basayev in 1999 raids in Dagestan that helped prompt the current Chechen war.
Their participation has bolstered President Vladimir Putin's case that Russia's campaign in Chechnya is part of a war on international terrorism. An Islamic group has claimed responsibility for the plane bombings and the suicide blast in Moscow that killed at least nine people Tuesday night.
Putin said Tuesday that the claim, while unconfirmed, was the latest demonstration of links between Chechen militants and international terrorists.
``If a terrorist organization claimed responsibility for this, and it is linked to al-Qaida, then this confirms a link between certain forces operating on the territory of Chechnya and international terrorism,'' he said.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there isn't evidence that al-Qaida is involved, but the Chechen rebels have been linked to the Muslim extremist group in the past and the new interest in aviation and increasing sophistication of attacks gives reason to be suspicious.
``It can't be ruled out, but there isn't any evidence of connections,'' the official said.
Suicide bombers are a new phenomenon for Russia, but hostage-taking raids have been part of the militant strategy since shortly after Russian forces rolled into the region in 1994 in a bid to crush the separatist government of Dzhokhar Dudayev.
Up to 30,000 people, including Dudayev, were killed before Russian troops withdrew, leaving Chechnya with de facto independence. Fighting resumed in 1999, after Chechen rebels staged raids into a neighboring region and were blamed for bombings that killed some 300 at apartment buildings in Moscow and other cities.
Basayev also led rebels who seized a hospital full of hostages in southern Russian in 1995, and claimed responsibility in a videotape for a well-coordinated attack on police facilities in Ingushetia that left some 90 people dead this June.
The October 2002 hostage-taking raid on a crowded theater in Moscow was led by a young rebel leader named Movsar Barayev, who was known more for his brutal exploits as a gun-for-hire than any devotion to the Islamic cause that Chechen militants have increasingly espoused.
After past attacks, Russian authorities have repeatedly pointed the finger at Aslan Maskhadov, the separatist leader who was elected president of Chechnya in 1997 after Russian forces withdrew and left the region with de facto independence. Maskhadov aides have denied his involvement.
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