pushing_fe said:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/824951.asp
It will be interesting to see how Russia deals with this situation.
Based on their past performances against Chechen terrorists very, very badly.
Actually it's not possible to underestimate the Russian army. The first time they invaded Chechnya, they got hammered in Grozny, the Capital. Grozny was about 50% Russian by ethnicity, old world-war II widows retired there, it was in the warm south, like florida for Russians. The Chechen civilians mostly abandoned the city leaving it full of old Russian ladies, who were waiting to be "rescued" by the advancing Russian troops. So what did the Russians do?
They flattened the city with artillery and heavy bombers. 40,000 - 60,000 old RUSSIAN women died.
When the Chechens have taken hostages before, like they did in that hospital in Budonyosk (sp?) in southern Russia in '96 or so, the Russians stormed the hospital, killed half the hostages and were defeated by the Chechens who headed off in a motorcade of buses back to Chechnya with the remaining hostages, where they GOT AWAY, despite being shadowed by helicopter gunships. The guy who headed up that caper, Shamil Basayev, is still a major Chechen warlord.
Let's not forget either that the Russian Secret Service was caught red-handed in the Moscow apartment bombings where over 300 died, in an operation to justify the second invasion of Chechnya.