Fierce Fighting in Grozny Raises Specter of ISIS Influence in Russia -- Anna Nemtsova, Daily Beast
Hours before Russian President Putin’s annual address to the nation, the Chechen capital saw the worst combat in years.
MOSCOW — The capital of Chechnya, Grozny, seemed to blow up around 1:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. News about hundreds of insurgents occupying schools, kindergartens and other state buildings and killing traffic policemen on the way into the city appeared on social networks and was passed from mouth to mouth. Artillery fire could be heard in Avtozavodsky district, on Chernyshevskogo and Putin avenues in downtown Grozny.
Inevitably, some of this may have been exaggerated in social media. But there is no question that a new battle has begun in an old war that Moscow—and many in Grozny—had hoped was over. Analysts also are raising the possibility that the so-called Islamic State, widely known as ISIS or ISIL, may have, at a minimum, ideological links to the attackers.
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My Comment: Fighting has been ongoing and escalating in neighboring Dagestan for the past year .... but this full scale attack by Islamic militants in Chechnya is a surprise, and I expect Chechen and Russian military forces to respond by escalating their war and ops against these groups.
