Report from the Russian Front

With Deputy Interior Minister Chekalin stating that a Presidential Directive ordering anyone putting up resistance with apeapon in Nalchik be “liquidated,” Russia continues their centuries old battle with Islamists. Once again, if you have not, read The Great Game, it will explain it all.

The BBC is really the best source for information from this front in the war. Yes, it is the same war we are fighting, just that the Russians play by different rules. Note that nowhere in the discussions of the battle in Nalchik, there are no discussions about “detention policy” or “prisoner abuse.” Russians play by very different rules.

Militants have staged mass raids on government and police buildings in a provincial capital in Russia, leaving dozens dead and many more injured.
Authorities say that 61 rebels have been killed, but 12 police and 12 civilians also died in the assault on Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria province.
Officials say militants are holding hostages at a police station in the city, which has been sealed off.
…
"All hell broke loose, and the impression was that there was shooting everywhere," a resident told Reuters news agency.
A school was also caught up in the running gun-battles, as black smoke billowed across the city.
President Vladimir Putin responded with an order for the city to be sealed off and for forces to shoot any armed resisters.
…
"The city has been taken under firm control. Not one car, not one train, not one bus will go past without being closely checked," Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said.
"Now our main task is to find the bandits in the city, including their wounded."

Like that little bit about the wounded? I don’t think they are trying to find out where to put field hospitals for them.

The pro-rebel Kavkaz Center website said that a detachment of the Chechen-linked Kabardino-Balkaria jamaat, called Yarmuk, had entered Nalchik.
The use of the word jamaat indicates that it is made up of radical Islamic fighters.

You think? That almost demonstrates historical cluelessness as well the next BBCism.

Political changes and a harsh crackdown on alleged Islamic militants appear to have pushed the region to the verge of instability, the BBC's regional analyst Steven Eke says.

Ooooookkkaaayyy. So if the Russians just didn’t do anything everything would be just peachy. Harumph.

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