Western Resistance

« UK: New Body To Monitor Extremist Imams In Mosques | | UK: Judge Places Islamists' Human Rights Above Public Safety, Sabotages Terror Laws »

June 28, 2006

Russia: Leading Muslim Cleric Condemns Diplomats' Murder

We reported earlier, with graphic pictures, that Vladimir Putin has vowed to hunt down those responsible for the killing of four Russian diplomats, who had been kidnapped on Saturday June 3 in Iraq. The four men had been abducted in Mansour in west Baghdad, when a vehicle blocked an embassy car, shot one of five diplomats inside, and kidnapped those left alive.

The man shot in the abduction was Vitaly Titov. The four hostages were Fyodor Zaytsev, Rinat Aglyulin, Anatoly Smirnov and Oleg Fedosseyev.

A message was posted on an internet site on Monday 19 June, saying that the hostages would be allowed to live if Russia withdrew from Chechnya and released Muslim prisoners from Russian jails. The message claimed that the event should "serve as a lesson... to those would still defy the mujahideen and dare to set foot in the proud land of two rivers." It should be noted that Zarqawi, the most famous abductor and killer of non-military hostages, was himself a foreigner in Iraq.

The message came from a group calling itself the Muhajideen Shura Council. On Sunday 25 June, a video was released, showing one man being decapitated, another being shot, and the dead body of another. The fourth hostage was not shown in this video, but the Russian foreign ministry confirmed from analysis of the images that the men were dead.

Before Putin's statement that Russia would mount its own mission to avenge their deaths, the foreign ministry said that the US and coalition forces should find and punish the killers, who were described as "terrorists". It described them as "inhuman, without honour, conscience or religion."

The chairman of Russia's Council of Muftis, Rival Gainutdin (pictured) yesterday issued a statement condemning the murder of the diplomats, states Interfax-Religion.

He claimed in a statement: "The atrocity has neither religious nor human justification. Russia has not waged war in Iraq, has not participated in combat activities, its diplomats possess immunity, they are protected by current international contracts and by norms and Islamic traditions as ambassadors of a nation that has come to help the Iraqi people. Russians have no personal guilt either for events in Iraq, or for events in Russia. Therefore the execution constitutes the murder of innocent civilians, and the Quran equates such crime to the murder of all mankind."

One of the diplomats was a Muslim, which Gainutdin claims is proof that the motives of the killers were political. He said: "Since the terms for release of the hostages was a demand that had nothing to do with the situation in Iraq and which was artificially linked to the situation in Chechnya, it proves that the organizers of the crime were cynically implementing their own geopolitical tasks."

He pointed the finger of blame on the Americans, as they had promised to take responsibility for events in Iraq following the downfall of Saddam Hussein. He said: ""If everything was controlled by the U.S. occupation forces, then why are dozens of innocent people including journalists and diplomats dying? Why are hostages being taken and mosques blown up? We believe that blame for the deaths of our people lies with the U.S. as well."

This month, a US anti-kidnapping task force stated that 439 foreigners and diplomats have been abducted since the invasion began on 19th March 2003.

Today, Reuters AlertNet announces that today Russia attempted to get the UN Security Council to condemn the killing of its diplomats and to demand improved security for foreign diplomats in Baghdad.

The attempt was thwarted by the US and Britain, who respectively have 127,000 and 7,000 troops in Iraq. They objected to the wording of the statement which was seen as an open affront to the US. Iraq's government, which is not a member of the 15-nation UN Security Council, also objected to the wording of the text.

A statement must be approved by all 15 members to be officially passed. US Ambassador John Bolton said: "They're going to have a statement. It's just a question of when. The Russian Foreign Ministry is now weighing alternative ideas."

In Moscow, the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, passed a motion condemning the deaths as the fault of the "occupying powers", rather than the Muslim extremists who committed the act.

By employing such reasoning, perhaps the members of the Duma should consider that if they have not accepted the Islamists' proposal to have the Caucasus region established as a separate Muslim state called "Ichkeria", then by their own logic, they only have their own policies to blame for the incident.

Laying blame at the foot of others is a futile game. Those who are truly guilty, the operatives of the Muhajideen Shura Council are those who committed the abduction and the murders. They, and they alone, are responsible for the killings.

Warning: Graphic images below

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at June 28, 2006 6:42 PM

Comments

Post a comment