22 FEBRUARY 2000 CIA CLINTON PUTS A PRICE ON PUTIN'S HEAD

The Moscow Times

February 22, 2000

Acts of Terror Predicted for Wednesday

BYLINE: By Simon Saradzhyan

SECTION: No. 1902

LENGTH: 1063 words

Staff Writer

As Chechen rebels have a $ 2.5 million bounty out on acting President Vladimir Putin's head, security services say they have reason to fear Chechens may stage terrorist acts in Russian cities Wednesday. Wednesday is the 56th anniversary of Stalin's mass deportations of Chechens during World War II. It also is celebrated in Russia as Defender of the Fatherland Day, formerly called Red Army Day, a holiday honoring veterans and men in uniform.

Saying he feared Chechens fighting for independence would choose this day to strike, Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo announced over the weekend his forces were tightening security around the country. An officer with the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said Monday his office was taking the threat seriously and was worried about possible hijackings.

Although earlier this year Chechen commander Khattab threatened to have his fighters "hit Russian cities," the Chechens have not specifically warned of attacks Wednesday.

Their most direct threat is aimed at Putin. On a new rebel web site, jikhad.org, Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev says he has issued a fatwa promising $ 2.5 million to anyone who can kill the acting president. "The one who fulfills this sentence will win the mercy of Allah. The blood of the Chechen people will be paid for by Putin's blood," says the fatwa,a commandment usually issued by a Moslem cleric, which is dated Jan. 16.

There is an e-mail address and fax number in Britain that would-be assassins are told to contact for more details of the contract on Putin. Inquiries sent both to the fax number and e-mail address went unanswered Monday.

Russian television reported late last year that a group of Islamic extremists based in London has been raising funds and recruiting volunteers to help the Chechen rebels. A Russian crew for NTV television was beaten up while covering the fund-raising campaign, but the assailants were never found. The report was rebroadcast Sunday.

An officer at the Federal Guard Service, which is responsible for protecting Putin and other top officials, said the service is aware of the fatwa, but refused to comment on whether additional measures have been taken to ensure Putin's personal security.

An Interior Ministry official, who spoke Monday on condition he not be identified, said there was reason to believe Chechen-trained terrorists were planning bomb attacks to mark the anniversary of the deportation of Chechens carried out in 1944 on the orders of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Russian authorities say they believe the apartment building blasts that rocked Moscow and two other cities in September, killing about 300 people, were terrorist acts staged by Chechen-trained rebels. The FSB, which is leading the investigations, has made no arrests but claims to have identified most of those suspected of being behind them.

The FSB has reported the discoveries of stores of explosives and terrorist training camps in Chechnya. An FSB officer said Monday his service has inspected the remnants of another terrorist training camp and found bombs disguised as canned baby food.

The discoveries of explosives and the fact that no one has been caught in connection with last fall's bombings indicates the terrorists are capable of staging more attacks, the FSB officer said, speaking on customary anonymity. He said Russians should report any suspicious activities.

"There is a war against terrorists going on," the FSB officer said by telephone. "It is very serious and we want our citizens to remain vigilant to stay alive. No one should be ashamed to report to us anything suspicious, even the spotting of a man with a waste bucket in your podezd can save hundreds of lives." Police in Moscow and in many other cities and regions across the county have been put on heightened alert and ordered to work 12-hour shifts Wednesday, the Interior Ministry official said in a telephone interview.

Municipal authorities in Vladivostok have asked residents of the Far East city to be vigilant, saying they have information about terrorist acts planned by Chechen-trained rebels.

Across the sea, the Japanese Foreign Ministry also has asked its citizens traveling in Russia to be aware of possible terrorist acts, Itar-Tass reported. Some 650,0000 Chechens and Ingush were forcibly deported by secret police and army units from their homes to Central Asia and Siberia in a massive operation that began Feb. 23, 1944. Many of them died.

Feb. 23 is also the day units of the newly established Red Army fought their first major battle against German troops in 1918. Stalin's regime maintained that deporting the Chechens and Ingush was necessary to prevent them from assisting invading Nazi troops. Up to 18,000 Chechens participated in an anti-Soviet rebellion as Nazi troops advanced within 60 kilometers of Grozny in 1942.

In addition to bomb attacks, the Chechen rebels may be planning to hijack planes to fly to Afghanistan, the FSB officer said.

He said informants have tipped off the FSB that Chechen leaders Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Movladi Udugov may try to hijack a plane from the Sleptsovskaya airport in neighboring Ingushetia to fly their supporters and relatives out to Afghanistan.

The Taliban, who control most of Afghanistan, have recently recognized Chechnya's independence and called on the Moslem world to start a jihad against Russia because of its military campaign. Aeroflot said it has boosted security, and Russian wire services reported that Shermetyevo Airport in Moscow has been combed for explosives.

On the rebel web site kavkaz.org, Udugov says neither he nor Yandarbiyev is planning a hijacking, and accuses Russia's security services of spreading false allegations for their own purposes. Also on the web site is the number of a bank account in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where those who want to help the Chechens can deposit contributions.

Yandarbiyev, who served as Chechen president in 1996, has been in Pakistan trying to raise support and financial backing for Chechnya's independence bid. One of his aides said Monday that Pakistan has ordered Yandarbiyev to "pack up and leave," Reuters reported from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has officially protested Pakistan's tolerance of the Chechen delegation.

The Times (London)

February 23, 2000, Wednesday

Russian alert for Chechen terrorists

BYLINE: Alice Lagnado in Moscow

SECTION: Overseas news

LENGTH: 236 words

Russian police and intelligence services went on alert yesterday fearing hijacks or bombings by Chechen rebels today, the fifty-sixth anniversary of Stalin's mass deportation of their countrymen.

Vladimir Rushailo, the Interior Minister, put police and special forces on guard and sent extra men to busy public places. Chechen leaders denied that they were planning to disrupt Russia. Stalin packed 650,000 Chechens and Ingush on to trains to Central Asia and Siberia in 1944, declaring that they had collaborated with the Nazis. Two years earlier 18,000 Chechens had rebelled against the Soviet regime as Hitler's troops approached Grozny. The horror of the deportations is still fresh in Chechen minds.

Today is also Defender of the Fatherland Day, previously Red Army Day. Vladimir Putin laid a wreath yesterday at a war memorial in the southern town of Volgograd and said that he was considering raising soldiers' allowances. The acting President said: "All talk of the collapse of the army is an open lie. This is unfair and disrespectful to our soldiers, especially those fighting in Chechnya."

Human Rights Watch said yesterday that it had interviewed six witnesses to a massacre of 62 people in Grozny, the Chechen capital, on February 5. Survivors said that about 100 Russian contract soldiers had rampaged through the streets, killing elderly men and women and burning down homes.

COMMENTARY:

The Russians had been claiming that the US was sponsoring the Chechen terrorists. The Chechen terrorists are US proxies. The Chechens are a cutout for covert American operators. So, when the Chechens put a price on Putin's head it was really the Americans putting a price on his head. We covered the history of Russian allegations of Chechen terrorist sponsorship in the link below. 

https://thearea51blog.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-history-of-russian-allegations-of.html