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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Dead Canadian jihadi draws parallels with Tsarnaev |
| 2013-05-02 |
| (Reuters) - A mess of rubble, ash and charred vehicles is all that's left at the desolate farmhouse where a Canadian Muslim convert died fighting his last battle alongside Islamist insurgents in the Russian region of Dagestan. At the time, few people beyond local villagers noticed William Plotnikov's death in a region where skirmishes occur daily. But almost a year on, Plotnikov has emerged into the limelight following the Boston Marathon bombings. The abrupt transformation of a Russian émigré into a die-hard rebel fighter draws eerie parallels with the life of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. On July 14, 2012, Russian forces surrounded the rebels near Utamysh and pounded them with artillery. Part of the farm where Plotnikov and his fellow fighters were hiding was reduced to rubble. At least seven people including Plotnikov were killed. Since last month's Boston bombings, attention has turned to others who may have followed similar lives to Tsarnaev. Russia's Novaya Gazeta newspaper and Canada's National Post have reported in detail on the last years of Plotnikov. An ethnic Russian who emigrated to Toronto with his parents as a teenager in 2005, Plotnikov converted to Islam as a young man and flew to Dagestan to join the Islamist militants. There is no evidence Plotnikov knew Tsarnaev but some similarities are striking. Both were young men when they plunged into Islam, possibly out of frustration with the challenges of their adopted home countries, and both were passionate boxers. Plotnikov's bemused father, Vitaly, described how his son changed from a typical teenager who borrowed his father's credit card to go ski-ing to someone devoted to prayer. "Somebody changed his mind in Canada," he told CBC TV. He said he thought Tsarnaev had had the "same problem". Both Plotnikov and Tsarnaev traveled to Dagestan in the first half of 2012 to explore their religion. They lived within 120 km (75 miles) of each other on the Caspian Sea coast. Salaat, a local pensioner, said the fair-skinned ethnic Russian Canadian stood out immediately as soon as he came to the village, home to about 3,000 people. "He came here after hooking up with some Utamysh youngsters in another village up north," she said. "He lived here for several months with them, then he disappeared into the forest." Foreigners are rarely spotted fighting for rebels in the Caucasus, just as ethnic Russians rarely convert to Islam. Yet, as conflicts continue in the Caucasus, nationalist claims to independence that dominated the 1990s have given way to calls for a pan-Caucasus Islamic state - including from people who went to fight in countries such Afghanistan and Syria, or those who simply view Russian rule as corrupt and oppressive. No one knows for sure how many militants are out in the mountains but most are now believed to be based in Dagestan, particularly in the south where Utamysh is located. For locals in Utamysh, last year's farmhouse battle was the closest the conflict had struck their homeland in many years after a period of relative peace. Dzhalil Alatsiyev, deputy head of the local administration in charge of security, said the insurgents had been under surveillance by Russia's FSB security forces for several months. "They never came to the village. They were hiding there," he said, pointing at the mountain range. Describing the insurgents as Wahhabis - or adherents to one of the most austere forms of Islam, he added: "It's easy to tell them apart. They have long beards. They pray differently. We are all Muslim here. But these people are different." The farmhouse is now deserted. Its owner has been jailed for helping the insurgents. One shed was flattened entirely by artillery fire. The main building was heavily damaged, its interior a mess of broken glass, metal and camouflage jackets. |
| Posted by:Anguper Hupomosing9418 |
| #2 Plotnikov shall plot no more. (Sorry, that's all I got...) |
| Posted by: Ackoopmed 2013-05-02 17:18 |
| #1 "A dead man's just a corpse. Nobody cares who he was." -- The Steel Helmet |
| Posted by: Muggsy Mussolini1226 2013-05-02 15:23 |