State Terrorism in Chechnya
f the many ethnic and subnational movements state religion. Following a brief, failed attempt by the
0 that surfaced with glasnost and the subsequent
breakup of the Soviet Union, the Chechen independ-
ence movement has been the most bloody. In Chech-
nya, a region of the northern Caucasus mountain
range (Figure 9.D), clans, not territory, is the tradi-
tional form of political organization. Ever since im-
perial Russia began expanding into the region in the
late 1700s, the Sunni Muslim Chechens put up strong
resistance, periodically waging holy wars against
Christian Russia. When the Russian revolution oc-
curred in 1917, they did not view the Bolsheviks as
an improvement, not least because the newly created
Soviet Union formally adopted scientific atheism as its
Fewer than 1 rnllllon
Figure 9.D The Northern Caucasus This reference map
shows the principal features, political boundaries, and major
cities of the northern Caucasus.
The most feared form of terrorism in the twenty-first
century is bioterrorism. Bioterrorism is the deliberate use
of microorganisms or toxins from living organisms to in-
duce death or disease. Biological and chemical agents that
could be used for bioterrorist purposes range from an-
thrax to West Nile virus. In 2002, the president of the
United States signed into law the Bioterrorism Act, in-
tended to protect the nation's food and drug supply from
bioterrorist threats. Since 9/11, research about and pub-
lic and commercial responses to possible bioterrorist
threats have grown significantly. Legislation, such as the
Bioterrorism Act of 2002, is the driving force behind this
new growth industry.
The emergence and persistence of a wide range of ex-
tremist religious groups in the United States and through-
out the world represents a potentially far more violent
peoples of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasus (in-
cluding the c o ~ ~ n t r i eofs Armenia, Azerbaijan, and
Georgia) to resist Soviet domination, the Soviets de-
cided to divide and conquer by creating adniinistra-
tive regions that encompassed a mixture of clans and
ethnic groups. The anti-Soviet Chechens were put in
the same region as the Ingush peoples to the south.
The Chechens remained defiant but paid a terrible
price for doing so. In the late 1930s tens of thousands
were liquidated by Stalin's purges aimed at suspected
anti-Soviet elements. In 1944, after invading German
forces were forced to retreat from the North Caucasus,
Stalin accused the Chechens of having collaborated
with the Nazis and ordered the entire Chechen popu-
lation-then numbering about 700,000-exiled to
Kazakhstan and Siberia. Brutal treatment during this
mass deportation led to the deaths of more than
200,000 Chechens.
In 1957 Nikita Kruschev embarked on a program
of de-Stalinization that included the rehabilitation of
Chechens. But when the Chechens returned, they
found newcomers had taken over many of their homes
and possessions. Over the next 30 years many of these
newcomers withdrew, while the Chechen population
consolidated and grew to almost 1 million. When
Mikhail Gorbachev initiated his policy of glasnost in
1985, Chechens finally saw a chance for self-determi-
nation, and with the breakup of the Soviet Union in
1989, they wasted no time unilaterally declaring their
complete independence.
threat than terrorist groups of tlie early and niid-twenti-
eth century. The rise in faith-based terrorism since tlie new
millennium suggests that the potential for evcti greater
acts of violence shoiild not be ignored.
The United States responded to the terrorist attacks
of September 11,2001 by declaring a global war against
terrorism and identifying first Afghanistan and then Iraq,
as the greatest threats to U.S. security. Although the evi-
dence of involvenient in the 911 l attacks by Iraq and its
leader, Saddam Hussein, was highly questionable, on
March 19,2003 after aniassing over 200,000 U.S. troops
in the Persian Gulf region, President George W. Bush or-
dered the bombing of the city of Bagdad, Iraq. The dec-
laration of war and invasion occurred without the explicit
authorization of tlie U.N. Security Council, and some legal
authorities take tlie view that the action violated the U.N.