Russia shapes plan of attack
As the memorial shrine in the Beslan school gymnasium grows larger by the day - with mourners leaving bottles of water, food, and toys to mark the thirst and hunger inflicted for three days upon hostages by terrorists last week - one handwritten note points to a troubling future.
On a piece of white cloth inside an escape hole dug into the gym wall are written the words, "Here began the Third World War - against Terror."
The Kremlin's strategy is beginning to take shape, as Russia comes to grips with the magnitude of the Beslan tragedy - with the death of some 330 hostages, the secondmost lethal terror attack in recent history after Sept. 11, 2001.
President Vladimir Putin refuses to meet with top Chechen separatist leaders, whom he holds responsible for a wave of terror that includes two downed passenger jets, a suicide bomb in Moscow, and the hostage crisis. But analysts say that Mr. Putin may offer far broader autonomy to Chechnya, which adds up to "de facto independence," according to American experts who took part in a 3 1/2-hour meeting with the Russian leader.
"He's not going to deal with a group of fighters who carry out terror attacks ... He wants to annihilate the radicals," says Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution in Washington, who met with Putin on Monday.
Putin offered "maximum autonomy, even to the point of violating the Russian constitution," says Ms. Hill. "Does he have something down in a blueprint? I don't know. But I would say give him the benefit of the doubt for now, and see what he does."
Military officials amplified past threats on Wednesday in moves that in some ways mirror US steps after 9/11. Chief of Staff Col. Gen. Yury Baluyevsky warned of "preemptive strikes ... to liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world." A $10 million reward is being offered for information leading to the "neutralization" of Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev and the more moderate former Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov.
"You always get this wave of macho talk about how we're going to do this and do that, in order to show that the military is still worth it," says Anatol Lieven, author of "Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power,"at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
The steps are meant to equate Kremlin steps with preemptive US moves. These include threats against Georgia in 2002 over Chechen rebel bases, and the killing of a former Chechen leader in a car bomb in Qatar in February. Russia denies any involvement, but two Russian security agents have been convicted in the case.
"They are saying that what's good for the goose is good for the gander: If you [in the US] can do it, we after such an attack can do it as well," says Mr. Lieven. "The military has obviously failed. [The Kremlin] is bankrupt, totally bankrupt of ideas. This is a strong warning to the Georgians not to allow the Chechens to reestablish themselves in the Pankisi Gorge."
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