The Threat Against The Olympics -- Anna Nemtsova, Daily Beast
A suicide bombing this week is just the latest attack by Islamist insurgents in the region.
When a bomb went off earlier this week in Chechnya, no one in the war-ravaged region mistook it for thunder. For more than a decade, separatists have fought Russian forces in a brutal war of attrition that has left the local population battered and weary.
Without a doubt, the powerful blast in the Sunzhensky district—which turned out to be the detonation of a suicide car bomb in front of a police station and killed three policemen—resonated beyond the restive region and was heard in Moscow.
Russia is hosting the upcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, a city on the Black Sea only 300 miles or so from the Chechen capital, Grozny. Earlier this year a leading Chechen Islamist militant called for attacks that would disrupt the Winter Games.
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Update: Russian rebels in Syria 'pose threat to Olympics' -- France 24/AFP
My Comment: These concerns are completely justified. It will only take one suicide bomber to change the spirit and focus of the Olympics to the issues and grievances that plague the Caucasus.
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