from http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=21364933
Mainly populated by Muslims but also by over 100 ethnic groups, the North Caucasus has been immersed in endless conflict in the form of an ongoing violent Islamist insurgency, making it one of the most dangerous places on Earth. Between July and October of last year, 133 people were reportedly killed, including 32 police officers, in the conflict between militants and government forces there, mostly in Dagestan.
On September 16, a suicide bomber killed three police officers and wounded four others in Chechnya and later that day, a suicide bomber killed another police officer and wounded another individual in Ingushetia. Also on that same day, police detained a man wearing a suicide bomb after he entered a police station. A week later, another suicide bomber exploded a car outside a Dagestan police station, killing two more police officers and injuring several more including civilians. And then there was the October suicide bombing of a bus in the Russian city of Volgograd.
Is this the beginning of a larger terrorist campaign leading up to Sochi? There should be little doubt it is.
With Sochi located so close to the Chechen capital of Grozny, a hotbed of extremism, there is little geographical insulation to bring us comfort
...Over the past 13 years, some 49 female suicide bombers -- dubbed "black widows"-- have carried out attacks in Russia, according to credible news reports. The October attack clearly showed that the militants who operate in Dagestan are capable of staging attacks far outside their home turf, which U.S. counter-terrorism officials say is a troubling signal of Umarov's rising confidence.
...n 2004, a bomb implanted in the Dinamo football stadium within a concrete pillar, inserted by Chechen insurgents during prior repairs, killed the first President of the Chechen Republic, Akhmad Kadyrov, as well as more than a dozen others. Kadyrov's son, Ramzan Kadyrov, is now President of the Chechen Republic, and is known to take a hard line against militants within his borders.
...Over the past 13 years, some 49 female suicide bombers -- dubbed "black widows"-- have carried out attacks in Russia, according to credible news reports. The October attack clearly showed that the militants who operate in Dagestan are capable of staging attacks far outside their home turf, which U.S. counter-terrorism officials say is a troubling signal of Umarov's rising confidence.
...n 2004, a bomb implanted in the Dinamo football stadium within a concrete pillar, inserted by Chechen insurgents during prior repairs, killed the first President of the Chechen Republic, Akhmad Kadyrov, as well as more than a dozen others. Kadyrov's son, Ramzan Kadyrov, is now President of the Chechen Republic, and is known to take a hard line against militants within his borders.
...Russian officials believe there could be as many as 1,500 Russian Islamist militants — including 400 to 500 Chechens, 600 Dagestanis, and 200 Tatars and Bashkirs — fighting in Syria on the side of the opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
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