MUFTI: CHECHNYA WAR NOT ABOUT ISLAM.

Following months of Russian government efforts to portray the fighting in Chechnya as a conflict between Christianity and Islam, Russia’s military newspaper April 25 cited with approval a Chechen Muslim leader who dismissed that idea. Mufti Magomed Bo-Shir, Krasnaya zvezda reported, said that “this is not a religious war.” The mufti, long at odds with the Dudayev government, also rejected the notion that Chechnya could become independent. Chechnya, he said, “is not ready to become a full-fledged Muslim state,” adding that it can only survive within the Russian Federation.

“Red Mercury” Exists After All.