Wednesday, February 15, 2006. Issue 3353. Page 10.


Spinning a Tale of Propane Tanks
By Yulia Latynina

President Vladimir Putin first promised to "waste" terrorists "in the
outhouse." Last Tuesday he went further in a speech to the top brass
of the Federal Security Service, instructing FSB agents to hunt down
terrorists "in every cave" and "to destroy them like rats."

One day after the president's speech an explosion ripped through a
two-story military barracks on a base in Chechnya, killing 13 and
injuring more than 20. The base in Kurchaloi, some 30 kilometers
southeast of Grozny, housed Chechen troops serving in a special
Defense Ministry security force called Vostok. Officials announced
that the barracks had been destroyed by a propane tank explosion. They
even showed the offending tanks on television.

The tanks were intact.

In his speech to the FSB brass, Putin commended the border guards for
shoring up the country's borders and making it harder for terrorists
to enter. Judging by Putin's speech, you'd have thought Shamil Basayev
was hiding out in Mexico, like Trotsky. But when Basayev gave an
interview to Andrei Babitsky last summer, he met the Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty reporter in Ingushetia. Earlier, the authorities
had nearly captured Basayev and his wife on the outskirts of Nalchik,
the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria.

When it became clear that cops had driven Basayev around Nalchik, the
Interior Ministry needed to save face. Not long after, the cops
entered a mosque belonging to the Jamaat of Kabardino-Balkaria in the
village of Volny Aul and beat up hundreds of people. After several
years of similar beatings, the Muslims of Nalchik rose up in armed
rebellion on Oct. 13, 2005. And they were destroyed. In his speech
last week, Putin singled out the operation in Nalchik as "an example
of successful work by the Russian law enforcement agencies as a whole
and by FSB employees in particular."


Rasul Makasharipov, the leader of a radical Islamic rebel group who
was killed by Interior Ministry commandos last summer, was first
arrested in the wake of Basayev's raid into Dagestan in August 1999.
Makasharipov had served as Basayev's translator in the Botlikh
district. Makasharipov was subsequently released, and returned to
Chechnya, where he tried to drum up support for another confrontation
with government troops. Because he had been released, however,
Makasharipov was suspected of being an informant. To clear his good
name, he returned to Dagestan and started wasting cops.

In Beslan on the night of Sept. 2-3, 2005 -- the first anniversary of
the Beslan tragedy -- members of an Ossetian militia apprehended an
Ingush man with a backpack, a paratrooper's knife and the pale skin of
a fighter who'd been hiding out in the forest. The man explained that
he had come to pick apples -- at night, on the anniversary of Beslan.

The cops intercepted the militia's radio transmissions and intervened.
After detaining the Ingush man, the police set him free. An eyewitness
suggested to me that the man had intended to blow up the railway line
in the area. Three days after our conversation the line was in fact
bombed, derailing a freight train.

Two parallel worlds exist in this country. In one world, the military,
law enforcement and the security services have turned into an enormous
supermarket that offers its services to criminals and terrorists
alike. The siloviki release hard-core extremists for cash and provide
a taxi service for Basayev.

In the other world, terrorists are wasted in outhouses and caves, and
when Defense Ministry barracks explode, propane is the culprit.

What astounds me about the propane story is that they showed the
intact gas tanks on television. Any explosives expert will tell you
that when a propane tank explodes, the metal pretty much vaporizes.

Then again, any spin doctor worth his salt will tell you that if you
want people to believe that a propane tank explosion destroyed an army
barracks, you'd better show them some tanks.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio