Arab commander in Chechnya killed

Radio Netherlands ^ | April 18 2004

[knighthawk]

The commander of the Arab fighters in the Russian republic of Chechnya has been killed. The family of Saudi rebel leader Abdul Aziz al-Ghamdi, better known as Abu Walid, has confirmed his death. There has been no official confirmation, and the circumstances are also unclear.

Russian authorities held Mr al-Ghamdi responsible for the Moscow metro attack in February in which forty people were killed. In the 1980s, he fought the Russians in Afghanistan and he has been in Chechnya for the last six years.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[COEXERJ145]

And there is deep morning in Europe as another "righteous freedom fighter" is murdered. /sarcasm

[nuconvert]

Gee, that's a shame...........NOT

[VadeRetro]

Another Mujahadeen gone to his virgins. May none of them have to wait much longer!

[Grzegorz 246]

"And there is deep morning in Europe as another "righteous freedom fighter" is murdered. /sarcasm"
Maybe I'm wrong, but I think couple years ago USA strong supported Chechens.

[Bismarck]

Are the Russians going to give this Mohammedan radical the "royal treatment"? Are they going to bury his corpse with swine offals?

[Westbrook]

When are we going to learn to conduct battle like the Russians?

When I was in Russia, I saw a news segment on the war in Chechnya. The Russians were ruthless, almost barbaric, but very, very EFFECTIVE.

And where is Koffi Anan wringing his hands about the "refugee crisis" in that region?

[dennisw]

May he burn in hell for a few eternities with Abdel Rantisi, Sheik Yassin and other Islamonazis

[Eurotwit]

"The Saudi website Islam Today said Ghamdi had "been hit (stabbed or shot) in the back" while preparing for prayers on Friday. "

[Dog]

This is a big get..

[eclectic]

but very, very EFFECTIVE

Not so in 1994/1995 - Grozny was strewn with corpses of Russian soldiers and burned vechiles. The effective thing is what the IDF does. Puff and no problem - only crispy terrorists!

[Grzegorz 246]

Yes in 94/95 in attack on Grozny Russians lost 100 tanks and other armored vechicles.

[Westbrook]

Yes, Yeltsin was ineffective.

Putin promised to show more backbone in the conflict.

I was in Russia in Jan 2002 and again in March 2002.

What I saw was a scorched-earth war plan.

While the rest of the world was crying about the American surgical bombing campaign in Afghanistan, the Russians were utterly destroying Chechnya with indiscriminate arial bombing raids and artillery shelling.

In one attack I saw in one of their news segments, when the fires in the city went out, they sent the large earth moving equipment to bury everything. I saw no attempt to look for wounded or to count the dead.

Not one peep from the Euro-peons condemning the Russian campaign in Chechnya.

[LoudRepublicangirl]

It's a bad time to be the leader of a terrorist organization.

[FreedomPoster]

>>Abdul Aziz al-Ghamdi, better known as Abu Walid

All of these bozos have multiple names. No wonder they're difficult to track when they come here.

[Angelus Errare]

Give it 24 hours or so until get official Russian confirmation or see a corpse - Chechen warlords have a bad habit of having extra lives and Abu Walid may not be an exception. His predecessor, Khattab, was dead at least 3 times until he stayed that way for good.

In addition, it behooves me to note that this SOB is kin to 3 of the 9/11 hijackers.

[marron]

The Al-Ghamdis are among the richest families in Saudi Arabia. They are part of the oligarchy that runs the place.

[marron]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think couple years ago USA strong supported Chechens.

Indirectly, there is some truth. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union there was a conscious policy to woo muslims, we managed to pull Egypt out of the Soviet camp, for example, and we worked hard to try and draw Syria and Iraq away from them though not very successfully.

And we had a dream of using muslims to dismantle the Soviet Union, the idea was that if we could ever provoke a muslim insurrection the USSR would come apart at the seams. It all made perfect sense when we were at war with them.

This led to a big error, when we allowed the Shah of Iran to be replaced by the Ayatollah, believing that the Islamists would be more ruthlessly anti-communist. And it had one big success when we, with the Saudis and the Pakistanis, put together the Afghan insurgency that led to the Soviet defeat there.

With the implosion of the Soviet Union, it became possible to implement the policy when it no longer made any strategic sense. The Turks had their dream of uniting the Turkic countries of Central Asia, and the Saudis had their dream of building their Wahab empire, and since we were allies with both of them, we didn't oppose either of them.

Consequently, under Clinton, we steadfastly refused to say anything against the Chechens during their first revolt. Popular opinion began to shift after they won defacto independence and rather than build a real country, allowed their territory to be used for further war against the surrounding territories. But while Clinton was still in office, our official policy didn't change.

When Bush took office, his first foreign policy step was to embrace Putin, and that signaled the beginning of our pullback from support for the Chechens. 9/11 sealed it, and after 9/11 we declared war on every one of the Saudi insurrections across Asia and gave complete approval to Putin to do whatever he had to do in Chechnya. The only Saudi insurrection we did not attack was their outpost in the Balkans. We have sought to offload that to the Europeans, though.

It should be clear, though, that our "support" for the Chechens was rhetorical. They were a Turkish and Saudi operation, mostly Saudi after a time. And our patience for Saudi foolishness began to end with GW Bush's administration, and ended completely with 9/11 and their reluctance to help us either in Afghanistan or Iraq either one.

[hollywood]

Maybe 'Abu Walid' was Ghamdi's FReep-name.