The War That No One Wants To Talk About In Russia

Putin's Secret War -- Anna Nemtsova, Foreign Policy

The bloody Islamic insurgency in Russia's backyard.

MAKHACHKALA, Russia – The officers nervously cocked their rifles as the crowd began to swell. The Kirovsky police station in the capital city of Russia's Dagestan region was now under siege. But the angry cohort outside the station walls on May 27 wasn't composed of the bearded, gun-toting militants one might expect in this insurgency-racked region, but a crowd of enraged women in hijabs and ankle-length dresses. It wasn't the first angry mob the officers had faced down, but a crowd of only women was unprecedented. Their dry faces wrinkled by sleepless nights, the women stormed the courtyard looking for their husbands and sons, locked in the basement cells, where they were thought to be beaten or, worse, tortured with electricity.

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My Comment: The following sentence sums up how dangerous the region is becoming ....

.... Dagestan, always one spark away from fire, is heating up -- a bad sign in this region, where 254 Russian police officers died in insurgency-related incidents last year, far more than the number of U.S. casualties in Afghanistan.

But critics of Putin's Caucasus policy (of which I am one of them) .... are a minority in Russia. Most Russians have contempt for those who come from the Caucasus, and will back any forceful response from Moscow that will target this Islamic militancy.