Bombings Aren't the Whole Story

This weekend's carnage in Moscow -- where two Chechen women laden with explosives blew themselves up at a music festival, killing 16 and wounding 50 -- is further evidence that the Chechen resistance (itself a fragmented and fractious gaggle with varying political orientations) contains an extremist wing that hews to a militant version of Islam and which has embraced suicide bombings to further its cause.

Last October, extremists took hostages in a Moscow theater, an episode that ended with the deaths of 129 captives and 41 Chechen commandos, most of them killed by a gas that Russian security forces piped into the building to incapacitate the guerrillas. There have also been four other suicide bombings in Chechnya and the neighboring republic of North Ossetia and a spate of assassinations of local officials in Chechnya.

Chechens in one form or another have been fighting the Russian state ever since they were defeated and annexed to the empire in the 19th century. The current struggle between Chechen separatists and Russia dates to the last days of the Soviet Union.

Much of what the outside world knows about Chechnya today comes from the Russian authorities. They have shaped the story line successfully by portraying the struggle as a war against terrorists and Islamic fanatics, and by linking the militants with Al Qaeda. This has played particularly well in Washington since 9/11: Criticism of Russia's brutal war has all but ended, and President Vladimir Putin has been feted as an ally in the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

Not that the Kremlin's version of Chechnya is entirely false. Has a segment of the Chechen resistance engaged in terrorism? Undeniably; there's no other way to describe suicide bombings that kill and maim civilians. Are the planners and perpetrators of such horrors motivated by a radical variant of Islam? Yes, by their own admission. Is Al Qaeda operating in Chechnya? Quite possibly, but we can't know for sure given the tightness with which the Russians control access to Chechnya.

In addition to shutting out reporters, the Kremlin's increasing control of Russian radio and television under Putin has resulted in sanitized stories from the front that emphasize military victories and progress toward a political solution. Recently, Russia terminated the Chechen mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and it continues to throw up obstacles to keep U.N. observers out. Western human rights organizations are denied permission to operate in Chechnya.