Original post:
I've posted the story of Arkady Katkov a couple times. It seems once again appropriate.
The Russians can be nasty. After the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 and the Beslan school massacre in 2004 you didn't hear much from the Chechens, despite the fact that sporadic hostilities continued until at least 2009. That is a gruesome story for another post. For today, here is an indication of what happened and what's to come.
This is a repost from May 2010:
Dealing with Pirates (and terrorists) Russian Style
While the BBC was reporting last week: "UN backs tougher stance against Somali piracy" yesterday's headline at the Moscow Times said "Somali Pirates Seize State-Owned Tanker".
Uh oh.
If the Somali pirates were up to speed on their history they may have remembered the name Arkady Katkov.
Starting in 1982, and continuing for the remainder of the decade, approximately 100 people were kidnapped in Beirut by various factions of Hezbollah ('the Party of God').
William Buckley, for example. He was the CIA station chief, kidnapped on March 16, 1984.
He was tortured to death. They did it slow, he died in captivity 15 months later, in June 1985.You can do your own digging if you wish more detail.
After his kidnapping the U.S. did the same thing they did after the Marine Corps barracks at Beirut International Airport were bombed in October 1983, killing 241 Marines and Sailors.
Nothing.
On September 30, 1985 four Soviet diplomats were kidnapped and Arkady Katkov was shot in the head by Hezbollah's head of security, Imad Mughniyeh.
The Soviets gave the kidnappers 48 hours to return the hostages and dispatched some guys they call Spetsgruppa A (Alfa Group).
The kidnappers and their relatives were identified by KGB operatives working with the Druze militia, and some of the relatives were taken hostage.
Following the standard policy of 'no negotiation', Alfa proceeded to sever some of their hostages' body parts and sent them to the perpetrators with a warning that more would follow if the Russian hostages were not released immediately. The tactic worked and no other Russian national was taken hostage in the Middle East for the next 20 years, until the 2006 abduction of Russian diplomats in Iraq.
Among the body parts was a decapitated head and some testicles.
The Russians did not kill Mughniyeh, some say he ended up working for them, but in February 2008 a joint US/Israeli operation blew him to hell on the streets of Damascus.
Mughniyeh was the man responsible for the drawn out torture and finally, murder, of Buckley.
He got better than he deserved.
Update:
At 18:40 GMT Reuters reports:
Russia says Hezbollah not a terrorist group-Ifax
it's all in the timing, kids.
