"The problem is jihadists; these people are fighting for God, not for freedom, and that is a whole different kind of challenge"

A surprisingly forthright article in the Monitor about the presence of jihadists in Chechnya, which the mainstream media usually does not acknowledge. "20 insurgents killed as Jihadist attacks rise in Russia's Caucasus," by Fred Weir for the Christian Science Monitor, February 12 (thanks to Larry): One of the biggest thorns in Russia's side since the Soviet Union's collapse has been Chechnya, one of seven republics along its southeastern flank known collectively as the north Caucasus.

After two wars, Moscow has largely tamed Chechnya's separatists with the help of strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, though not without cost. An estimated quarter million people have been killed, and the tiny republic has turned into a totalitarian statelet. Dissenters face kidnapping, torture, and extrajudicial execution, says Alexander Cherkassov of Memorial, Russia's largest independent human rights group.

"Now we are seeing the same methods being applied in Ingushetia and Dagestan," he says....

But there's one problem: While the Chechnya rebellion was nationalist, this threat has jihadist overtones.

"The Chechen rebels were originally fighting for independence, to break away from Russia and form their own nation," says investigative journalist Yulia Latynina. But now "the problem is jihadists; these people are fighting for God, not for freedom, and that is a whole different kind of challenge."...

That is a distinction that very few analysts have grasped.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/the-problem-is-jihadists-these-people-are-fighting-for-god-not-for-freedom-and-that-is-a-whole-diffe.html