He Needed Killing, Part 2

Shamil Basayev has gone to hell to live with Zarkawi. Although my feelings about Basaev are not complicated, my feelings on the Chechen war are. My sympathies were entirely with the Chechens when Putin re-invaded Chechyna and overthrew its elected government, led by Aslan Maskhadov (also killed recently). But as the U.S. and EU placed politics above principle and kept silent about Russia’s destruction of a historically sovereign nation, the moderate and Western-oriented resistance was squeezed by a radical wing led by Basayev and his Jordanian jihadi associate, Khattab (also dead). Basayev’s death means that the Chechen rebels have lost their last high-profile leader, and suggests that the Russians are steadily wearing them down to lower levels of intensity.