Beslan killers cast spotlight on shadowy Arab army from Chechnya to Balkans Agence France Presse

Beslan killers cast spotlight on shadowy Arab army from Chechnya to Balkans
Agence France Presse - September 7, 2004

By: Lamia Radi

CAIRO Sept 7 - Among the bodies of hostage-takers in Russia's Beslan school, a handful of Arab corpses have brought a spotlight on a shadowy group fighting with homegrown causes from Chechnya to the Balkans.

"An important and influential Arab presence has existed in Chechnya and in the Balkans since the end of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan when the noose started to tighten around the Arab mujahedeen (fighters)," said Islamist lawyer Montasser al-Zayyat.

"Between 1992 and 1995 many Arabs who had been fighting alongside the Afghans against the Soviet occupation fled towards Yemen and Sudan.

"The remainder of these fighters then began an exodus towards the new "front" of Islamic resistance -- Albania, Bosnia, Dagestan and Chechnya," added Zayyat.

He recalled that Ayman al-Zawahiri, right-hand man of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, had been arrested and held for six months in Dagestan in 1996 before bin Laden "pulled strings" and got him released.

"More recently, the Saudi Khattab and the Egyptian Anwar Shaban, viewed as the emir of Arab mujahedeen, were in Chechnya where the latter was killed in 2001," the lawyer added.

"The presence of Arabs in this region is not new, it was merely discreet. The hostage-taking in Ossetia brought a media spotlight on this presence."

The announcement of Arabs being among the hostage-takers was made by Valery Andreyev, the top regional security official in Beslan, on September 3: "Among the 20 terrorists killed, there are 10 citizens of the Arab world."

On Tuesday, an official toll put the number of hostage-takers at 31 but did not give a breakdown of nationality. Their operation resulted in a total death toll of 366, including 156 children. Another 705 people were wounded.

According to Zayyat "Arab fighters in Chechnya can be figured in the hundreds.

"They have, despite differences, certain common denominators with Al-Qaeda -- salafism (a return to strict Islam), a political ideology opposed to the West, and notably high-level training in combat and weapons handling," he said.

"Afghanistan became a launch-base for Arab fighters to go to other areas of ideological conflict."

Zayyat pointed to what he termed the international political design being followed by Russin President Vladimir Putin.

"In announcing the presence of Arabs among the hostage-takers, Putin is comparing events in Chechnya to September 11 in the United States, which had also been carried out by Arabs.

"He wants to gain the sympathy of the international community, in saying he is not crushing a people but is fighting international terrorism which strikes the United States and Europe," said Zayyat.

"However, in Chechnya it is national liberation movements which are aspiring to independence. The Islamic credentials of these movements have brought them the support of Islamist groups whose fighters have joined them.

"But at heart the movements remain nationalist."

Islamist writer Fahmi Howeidi shares Zayyat's view, while condemning the "atrocious and indefensible" operation in Beslan.

"Arab fighters, chased in Afghanistan, have transferred their theatre of operations to Bosnia, Chechnya and other countries," Howeidi told AFP.

"The presumed participation of Arabs in the (Russian school) hostage-taking should make us question the reasons which have pushed these people to leave their homelands and go to fight abroad," he added, denouncing what he termed the dictatorships and repression in the Arab world.

"These people know that once they return to their own country they will be tortured or killed. So they tell themselves it's better to die overseas under the banner of a cause than to fall in the hands of their torturers.

"We should also ask why the world approves independence movements led by Christians or animists but rejects any aspiration to freedom coming from Arabs or Muslims," said Howeidi.