Audacity of rebel attacks growing

By ANNE PENKETH

The spate of Chechen rebel attacks on Russia's planes, metro stations and now a school have left more than 100 people dead in eight days.

If the attacks are co-ordinated, and it appears they may be, they represent the most sophisticated ever to be carried out by the Muslim separatists, who refuse to abandon their struggle despite two wars intended to crush their aspirations.

But analysts yesterday hesitated to say which Chechen group might be to blame, given that the guerrillas have been forced underground by Moscow's refusal to negotiate.

"I don't know if it was the same group that carried out all the attacks, but it looks very likely," said Oksana Antonenko of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

But she was sceptical of a claim by a previously unknown group, the Islambouli Brigades, which has said it was responsible for both the bombings that downed two planes last week and Wednesday's attack on the metro in Moscow.

"No one believes they could have done such a sophisticated attack" as the downing of two planes that had set off from the same Moscow airport, she added.

That raises the question of whether President Vladimir Putin is right to blame al Qaeda, as he invariably does whenever Chechen rebels strike. The hallmark of al Qaeda is their staging of spectacular multiple attacks. But there again, experts were doubtful.

"I would not rule out that there was some component of al Qaeda support. But I think for Putin to suggest that this is al Qaeda-proper operating on their doorstep is overstating the case," said David Claridge, managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management in London.

Moscow's biggest enemy in Chechnya is Shamil Basayev, the mastermind of the 1995 hostage-taking at a hospital in Budennovsk, in which 166 people died when the Russians stormed the building.

He may also have been behind the October 2002 Moscow siege in which the 41 Chechen hostage-takers and 129 captives were gassed to death.

Yesterday's mass hostage-taking was reminiscent of the 1995 drama and could end as tragically if Russian troops move in.

The once-moderate Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov is also in hiding and little is known of his influence over the guerrillas and his relationship with other factions. But his spokesman in London, Akhmed Zakayev, has said that the plane bombings were not the work of their faction.

- INDEPENDENT