Following the Beslan tragedy last month, Russian officials began threatening to attack Chechen rebel sympathizers and representatives abroad. Last week, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who was attending a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Poiana Brasov, Romania, said that Russia would launch pre-emptive strikes against terrorists worldwide, but would stop short of using nuclear weapons.
Hours later, the first "pre-emptive strike" occurred in London. The homes of exiled Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev and former Federal Security Service officer Alexander Litvinenko were attacked with Molotov cocktails. Zakayev is the chief representative of Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov in the West. Litvinenko has in the past accused the FSB of carrying out the 1999 bombings of Moscow apartment buildings in order to create a pretext for invading Chechnya and of plotting to kill Boris Berezovsky. Zakayev, Litvinenko and Berezovsky have been granted political asylum in Britain.
The arson attacks damaged property, but no one was injured and no arrests have been made. Boris Labusov, the official spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, ruled out any SVR involvement. Technically, Labusov may be telling the truth, but the SVR is not the only branch of Russia's intelligence services operating abroad. In Qatar, two officers of the General Staff's Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU, were convicted for a car bombing in February that killed former Chechen rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. |