Russian & Chechnyan & sorts Terror updates.

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Wednesday July 20, 2005 18:15 by russian front - leave Iraq please.

"july 21 will be a day of mourning"

he Russia's FSB security service have averted a series of terrorist attacks in Samara city on the Volga River.

The press service of the FSB department for the Samara region told Itar-Tass on Wednesday, “A North Caucasian organised criminal group was planning to stage a series of explosions in Samara with the use of self-made bombs.”

The criminal group members have been detained in a special operation. Police confiscated from them Kalashnikov submachine guns, the BORZ machine pistol of Chechen make, self-made explosive devices, radio communications sets, car number plates and police uniforms.

Police are currently trying to find out the channels of supply of the weapons and explosives, as well as checking the detained for complicity in terror acts in the Russian territory.

don't rent DVDs like this. If your family members rent DVDs like this, call the clergy to have a word.

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Law enforcement agencies in Chechnya have been informed that 15 suicide bombers were trained on instructions by Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev for terrorist acts in different Russian regions, the Chechen interior minister said on Wednesday.

This information is being checked, the minister, Ruslan Alkhanov, said. “We are working on it, establishing the names of the perpetrators of the planned terrorist acts,” he stressed. According to early reports, there are both women and men among the suicide bombers.

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The death toll from a terrorist act in the Chechen settlement of Znamenskoye has reached 15 after a woman died in hospital of wounds on Wednesday, Russia’s deputy prosecutor general, Nikolai Shepel, reported.

Another 27 people were wounded when a police vehicle was blasted in the settlement on Tuesday.

Investigation brigades working on the case have identified a group of potential suspects in the case, but no one has been arrested as of yet.

Criminal proceedings have been instituted on four articles – terrorism, infringement on the life of staffers of law enforcement agencies, murder of two or more people and illegal production of an explosive device.

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The horrible dirty war in Chechnya gave the world the Beslan School massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_hostage_crisis

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Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov said Wednesday that 71 militants, including 10 warlords, had been killed in Chechnya since the beginning of 2005.

He also said 104 militants, including six warlords, had been detained in the republic in the first half of 2005.

"The situation in Chechnya is still complicated as militant units have not ceased their criminal activities," the minister said before adding that the crime rate had fallen. The number of registered terrorist acts fell by 71% in 2005. Alkhanov said twice as many investigations of terrorist acts had been solved as compared to the first half of 2004.

The minister also said 43 successful investigations of terrorist acts perpetrated in Chechnya had been conducted this year.

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Thursday, July 21 will be a day of mourning in Chechnya for the victims of the terrorist act carried out in the village of Znamenskoye, Tuesday.

Chechen Prime Minister Sergei Abramov said that Chechen President Alu Alkhanov had signed the relevant order.

He also said that all public entertainment, including entertaining TV and radio programs, would be canceled on July 21.

Abramov, who visited the site of the tragedy, confirmed that 14 people had been killed, including ten policemen, one FSB officer and three local residents. Five policemen and 19 civilians were wounded.

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The homemade bomb that went off Tuesday in Chechnya was carrying the equivalent of 10 kg of TNT, a source in the investigation said.

"According to bomb disposal experts, the improvised explosive device was made out of an artillery shell and its power equaled 10 kg of TNT," the source said. On Tuesday at 12:49 (local time) the police reported that an UAZ car was shot at from a Zhiguli car without a license plate in the village of Znamenskoye, 60 km north-west of here, the source said.

Officers from the Regional Department of Internal Affairs arrived at the scene in four cars after a report from the police.

"At 1:10 p.m. local time an improvised explosive device exploded, when the officers were inspecting the UAZ car, containing the body of an unidentified male," the source said.

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A series of successful sweep operations has been carried out in Chechnya against criminal armed groups in the first half of 2005.

"As a result, 140 active members of criminal groups have been detained and 71 killed," a spokesman for the Chechen Interior Ministry told Interfax by telephone on Wednesday.

Six warlords have been detained and 20 have been killed in sweeps, the spokesman said.

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MOSCOW, July 20 (Reuters) - Britain must curb some of its cherished civil liberties if it wants to avoid more suicide bomb attacks, Russia's state security agency says.

Nikolai Zakharov, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB successor agency that leads Russia's fight against militants, said people would come to understand that losing some rights was better than facing more attacks such as those in London on July 7 which killed 56 people.

Tighter checks on immigration and movements of people in and out of the country were among specific recommendations he made.

Russia has the dubious honour of having suffered more suicide bombings than any other European state. Hundreds of people have been killed in 15 such attacks in Moscow and the troubled North Caucasus since 2000.

"All countries that have fought the problems of suicide bombers have had to strengthen security," Zakharov, one of the few FSB officials authorised to speak on the record to the media, told Reuters.

"People at the start complain how this, in some way, violates their civil rights. But it is aimed at protecting them and society, so they just have to agree to it."

Moscow's 10-year-old fight against Chechen separatists has spilled over the region's borders as extremist militants have attacked targets far from their homeland.

Chechen rebels deployed suicide bombers -- usually women nicknamed "black widows" in Russian -- in attacks on an open-air rock concert, a hotel and the metro in Moscow.

They have also hit police checkpoints, a military hospital, buses and other targets in the seething Caucasus region.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Russia has long tried to persuade the world it is fighting international terrorists in Chechnya but has had only limited success. It was particularly vexed when Britain granted political asylum to rebel leader Akhmed Zakayev in 2003.

Within hours of the London attacks, President Vladimir Putin condemned such "double standards" in the fight against terrorism, saying the whole world should stand together.

"No country can distance itself -- no matter how effective its security services, no matter how rich it is -- it cannot distance itself from this fight," said Zakharov.

"We cannot depart from the principles of democracy, but we have to remember the times we are living in."

Britain has decided to investigate militant financing, and agreed to speed up new legislation to outlaw preparing, training for and inciting terrorist acts.

The European Union has suggested restricting access to bomb-making materials and improving police cooperation, but Zakharov said he believed more intrusive reforms would be needed.

"This problem requires tighter control on migration, on people leaving and entering the country and, of course, people complain," he said.

"We saw this here with airports when everyone had to start going through metal detectors. People do not like this. But on the other hand, you have to balance that with the risk of ending up as the victim of a suicide bomber."

He declined to comment on any direct links between the London attackers -- all British citizens -- and Russia's own fight. But he said Britain could hardly have been unaware of the bombers' links to extremist groups.

"The fact of the participation of British citizens in terrorist structures, including in Chechnya, has already been established," he said, referring to Britons who have been killed fighting on the side of the rebels.

"You cannot say that our British colleagues did not know that British citizens were linked to international terrorism."

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it seems the missionaries of terror aren't the only problem, the travel agents of terror are too...
supply & demand.
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sources & links:-

http://www.reuters.com
http://www.interfax.ru
http://en.rian.ru/
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/
http://www.mosnews.com/