Armed Chechens Seize Moscow Theater
Published October 23, 2002
A blanket-shrouded body, identified only as a woman, was wheeled out of the theater Thursday afternoon, apparently killed in the early hours of the hostage drama. Sergei Ignachenko, a spokesman for the Federal Security Service, said the woman appeared to be in her 20s and had been shot in the chest and her fingers broken.
The rebels, both men and women, stormed the theater at 9:05 p.m. Wednesday as an audience of about 700 people watched a popular musical.
In a broadcast monitored in Cairo, Egypt, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel broadcast a videotaped statement by one of the estimated 40 hostage-takers from inside the theater.
"I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living," a black-clad male hostage-taker said in the broadcast. "Each one of us is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of God and the independence of Chechnya."
"Even if we are killed, thousands of brothers and sisters will come after us, ready to sacrifice themselves," declared a female hostage-taker, covered in a black robe except for her eyes. AP, Reuters, BBC, NY Times still don't think they're terrorists.
12:36 est
From Reuters:
- Chechen gunmen holding hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theater fired grenades at two women who escaped from their captors on Thursday, wounding one of them, Itar-Tass news agency said.
The agency, quoting security sources at the scene, said the injured woman was receiving medical attention. The second woman appeared unhurt.
The incident appeared to explain three loud explosions which reporters heard coming from the theater earlier.
Interestingly, political leaders throughout the world are calling the act terrorism [from Reuters!]:
- Governments around the world on Thursday denounced the Chechen rebels who seized some 700 Moscow theatergoers, saying civilians were again victims of extremists and the world community must unite to fight such acts of terror.
"We denounce this terrorist act and its brutal nature," said Portuguese Foreign Minister Antonio Martins da Cruz, acting president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
....The former Soviet republic of Georgia, bordering Chechnya, quickly condemned the hostage seizure. Russia accuses Georgia of failing to root out Chechen rebels hiding in its territory.
"Everybody in Georgia is extremely concerned about the act of terror perpetrated in Moscow. No reasonable human being could react differently," Foreign Minister Irakli Menagharishvili said.
....German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder wrote that "once again, hundreds of innocent civilians are the target of terror," adding "one must not accept threats to our society from terrorism."
Leaders said the siege underscored that the world community must pursue a war on terrorism declared by the United States after hijackers killed more than 3,000 people in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.
- Armed Chechens Seize Moscow Theater
- Published: October 23, 2002
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- Section: Culture
- Writer: Eric Olsen
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Comments on this articleComments
Excellent John, thanks. You kind of figured the Russians wouldn't hesitate to characterize the situation as such.
So do the Russkies continue to oppose us on Iraq, or do we team up and get to work on removing this blight once and for all? And when we're done with the filthy French, we can go after the Islamofacists
The headline over at The Guardian is "Muslim Peace Activists Detain Russian Theatergoers in Mass Protest"
Okay, I made that up. But it's almost believable.
Why such an increase in activity (Bali, Moscow, Phillippines) when it would appear such terrorist activity would bring more allies to our side? These nutjobs need a course in game theory or marketing or something.
One thing though. Were any of us calling the Chechens 'terrorists' prior to 9/11? Probably not. I think most American right/left-wingers thought the Moscow apartment bombings were some sort of Russian conspiracy to allow Putin to re-invade Chechnya.
Actually, considering this country's isolationist bent at the time, most of us probably didn't really care.
It does cause me to rethink my view of Russian's war in Chechnya, particularly the second war. If I were the Russians, I'd pump the theater full of carbon monoxide, which is odorless and invisible, then drag out the hostages and try to revive them with oxygen. The "mining" activity described in news reports might make that impossible though, because you'd have to move very quickly after everyone passed out to save the hostages.
I certainly thought of the Chechen separatists as terrorists long before 9/11. As far as I'm concerned we should give Russia a free hand to deal with the problem in as brutal a fashion as they see fit.
Does anyone here know any Chechen/Russian history? Does it make no difference at all that Russia/USSR has treated the people there like shit since the Russian invasion and conquest of the land a century and a half ago? In this case, as in the case of Ireland post potato famine, "root causes" demonstrably exist and have little to do with religious fanaticism.
If you have a little time to read history, try
http://www.newsbee.net/moscow/chhistory.html
in which you will find the elegant solution of Stalin to the "Islamic fundamentalists" of his day (i.e. Muslims who resisted his authority): deport the whole population hundreds of miles away. Compared to the Russian war in 1995, that was pretty humane.
Everyone has legitimate grievances - what counts most is how you deal with them.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/1478)
You may want to include what the Russians are saying about this. Check out http://english.pravda.ru/
Moscow: Chechen terrorists take theatre
Chechen kamikaze squad take theatre with 1,000 hostages in Moscow
A group of between 20 and 30 kamikaze Chechen terrorists stormed a packed Moscow theatre tonight, threatening to blow the building up unless their demands are met. It is feared that due to the fact that their demands are unrealistic, they will prefer to become martyrs, rather than prisoners. ....