Solta Ersanov Quotes
…this is a warning to the Russian authorities
Solta Ersanov Chechnyan Terrorist Military Commander, Description of a series of terror bombings in Russia, August 1996, Quoted in Yossef Bodansky, Chechnya: The Mujahedin Factor
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Islamic extremists had killed thousands on Russian citizens and military men in Chechen, one of the states in Russia. At the time--before 9-11--Americans in the homeland had never been attacked by Islamic religious extremists as the Russians had. Some Americans were very critical of the Russians for using force and troops to deal with the terrorists and urged Putin to negotiate. This was Putin's reply. It was taken by many Americans as an unnecessarily hard line then. After 9-11, however, American views towards negotiations with terrorists generally resembled Putin in this quotation. Many Americans then developed much more sympathy with the Russian position on terrorism inside Russia.
Bosnian Serbs took United Nations peace keepers hostage in 1995.
The quotation is notable as it illustrates the great difficulty that modern democracies have with extreme Islamic fundamentalists. Their very perception and world view is so different that often we think of the extremists as insane and they often feel the same way about us.
