The Continuing War In Chechnya

To Smother Rebels, Arson Campaign in Chechnya -- New York Times

SHALI, Russia — The men who set fire to Valentina Basargina’s house arrived in the stillness of 3 a.m. There were three of them. Each wore a camouflage uniform and carried a rifle. One held a can of gasoline. They wore masks.

They led Ms. Basargina and her son outside and splashed gasoline in their two rooms, she and her relatives said. One man produced a T-shirt, knotted onto a stick. It was damp with gas.

“This is for the one who is gone,” he said in thickly accented Russian. Ms. Basargina’s nephew had recently disappeared; the police had said he joined the small but smoldering insurgency fighting for Chechnya’s independence from Russia.

The man lit the torch and tossed it inside. The air whooshed. Flames shot through the house.

The attack, late last month, was part of what Chechens described as an intensified government effort to stamp out the remnants of a war that has continued, at varying levels of ferocity, for nearly 15 years.

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My Comment: This is not going to stop the insurgency .... it never does. It only builds resentment and anger that will carry into the next generation.