…OR AL QAEDA IN THE CAUCASUS?

An April 26 article in the Washington Post quoted Rohan Gunaratna of St. Andrews University in Scotland as saying that after the fall of the Taliban regime, “Chechnya and the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia partially replaced Afghanistan as a center for terrorist training…The initial wave of terrorists who are now coming to Europe trained in Chechnya or Algeria.”

On June 14 Chechnya Weekly sent an e-mail to Dr. Gunaratna requesting details: “What is known about Chechens who have fought on the side of the Taliban in Afghanistan–do we have any specific names? What precisely is the extent of training camps for al Qaeda within Chechnya; just where are they, and how do we know about them? Have any of their ‘graduates’ been captured?” We have yet to receive a substantive reply.