Article

2022-12-10 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

The jailed KGB assassin responsible for keeping Paul Whelan behind bars in Russia: Kremlin said it would only release Brittney Griner AND the Marine vet if US helped free hitman who slaughtered Chechen separatist

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Posted by Skidmark 2022-12-10 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11 views ] Top

#1 NBC News issues correction after reporting Biden had a 'choice' between Griner or Whelan in prisoner swap

Posted by Skidmark 2022-12-10 09:02|| 2022-12-10 09:02|| Front Page Top

#2 According to the New York Times:
"The victim was a 40-year-old refugee named Zelimkhan Khangoshvili,... a Chechen former separatist commander who fought against Russian forces in the early 2000s and was labeled a terrorist by Russian state media."

Early 2000s, eh? Somebody was holding a grudge. Payback for Beslan, maybe.

Posted by SteveS 2022-12-10 09:58|| 2022-12-10 09:58|| Front Page Top

#3 Good find, SteveS — and thank you for reading the New York Times so that we don’t have to. The gentleman in question shows up several times in the Rantburg archives, so I’ve added a search on his name to the bottom of the article.

Definitely payback for more than Beslan. To quote an in-line:

Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the so-called Chechen Republic of Ichkeria evolved into the Al Qaeda-linked Caucasus Emirate, the umbrella group for the jihadi organizations in the North Caucasus. Russia has been hunting down the jihadis of Caucasian Emirate for three decades.

Posted by trailing wife 2022-12-10 11:16|| 2022-12-10 11:16|| Front Page Top

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