Putin warns of Kremlin’s preventative action against terrorists

RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin said yesterday the Kremlin was preparing to take preventative action against terrorists, even as a Chechen rebel leader purportedly claimed responsibility for a series of attacks that killed hundreds of people and threatened further violence.

Mr Putin’s comments were the highest-level warning yet that Russia could take some sort of pre-emptive action against terror groups in the wake of this month’s deadly school hostage-taking in Beslan.

Lower-level officials have threatened anti-terror strikes abroad, and it was not immediately clear whether Mr Putin was referring to actions only at home or outside Russia’s borders.

“Now in Russia, we are seriously preparing to act preventively against terrorists,” Mr Putin said. He was quoted as saying that the steps would be “in strict accordance with the law and norms of the constitution, relying on international law.”

Recalling the attempts to appease Adolf Hitler in the 1930s, Mr Putin said there could be no “bargaining” with terrorists. “Every concession leads to a widening of their demands and multiplies the losses,” Mr Putin was quoted as saying.

His speech came the same day that an e-mail attributed to radical Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev was posted on a website, claiming responsibility for an August explosion at a bus stop outside Moscow, the near-simultaneous bombings of two planes the same night, a suicide bombing outside a Moscow subway station a week later, and the Beslan hostage-taking.

More than 430 people were killed in the attacks and 338 of those were during the Beslan school siege.

The email attributed to Mr Basayev and posted Friday on the Kavkaz-Centre website said he had sent a letter to Putin proposing “independence for Chechnya in exchange for security”.

It was impossible to confirm whether the text - signed with Mr Basayev’s nom de guerre, “Abdallakh Shamil, Emir of the Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs’ Brigade,” - on the website was genuine. But the site is considered a mouthpiece for Mr Basayev.