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Russia Plagued by Decades of Islamist Separatist Violence

   Islamist militants in Russia's North Caucasus likely to be involved in
   Moscow subway bombing

   VOA News 29 March 2010
   Emergency  Ministry  officers  and  firefighters  carry  a  body  from
   Lubyanka metro station to an ambulance in downtown Moscow, 29 Mar 2010

Photo: AP

   Emergency  Ministry  officers  and  firefighters  carry  a  body  from
   Lubyanka metro station to an ambulance in downtown Moscow, 29 Mar 2010

   Islamist  militants  in  Russia's  North  Caucasus  have  carried  out
   numerous   attacks  since  Russia  first  sent  troops  to  crush  the
   separatist uprising in Chechnya in the early 1990s.
   Among the most notable attacks are:
   *October  2002:  Chechen militants seized a theater in Moscow, holding
   more  than 800 people captive for three days. Nearly 130 hostages were
   killed   after   Russian  forces  stormed  the  building,  pumping  an
   incapacitating gas into the theater.
   *September  2004: Chechen separatists seized a large group of hostages
   at  a  school  in  Beslan  in  the  southern Russian republic of North
   Ossetia.  More  than  330 people were killed in that incident, half of
   them children.
   *August  2004: Chechen rebels were blamed for the simultaneous bombing
   of two Russian airliners, killing 90 people.
   *March  2005:  Heavily  armed  Islamist  militants attacked police and
   government   buildings   in  the  city  of  Nalchik,  the  capital  of
   Kabardino-Balkaria  republic.  The  raid  triggered  fierce gunbattles
   between the attackers and local authorities, killing about 140 people.

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