Page 64 - The Winter of Islam and the Spring to Come

THE WINTER OF ISLAM AND THE SPRING TO COME
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Dagestan in the early months of 1999. The 1,500 or so people of these
villages asked for help from Chechnya, which they regarded as their
natural leader. Shamil Basayev, who had become popular due to his
success in war, began to offer assistance to the people of Dagestan in the
summer of 1999. Only two of the villages being pounded by the
Russians could be saved. There was terrible slaughter in those villages,
and innocent people had been viciously murdered. The war between
Russia and Chechnyawas sparked off yet again by this incident.
Russian forces entered Chechnya on October 2, 1999 and began to
ruthlessly kill anyone they came across, making no exceptions for
women, children or the elderly. They began to attack civilian targets.
Chemical weapons, Scud missiles and napalm were used in the attacks,
and hospitals, maternity wards, public shopping areas and refugee
camps were deliberately selected as targets.
One of the forms of attack that the civilian targets experienced was
to poison the Argun River, a source of water for the populations of a
number of Chechen villages. Most of the women and children who
drank from the river died, and hundreds of others were left to suffer
long-term ill effects. Chechnya lost three-quarters of its population in
just two years. Even now, some of the native Chechens are still trying to
survive in neighboring countries under the most difficult conditions.
The massacre of the Chechen people by some Russians who still
retain the same old communist mentality resembled the one carried out
millennia ago by the Pharaoh. In his own time, he also attacked the
weak and defenseless, and brutally slew them. Allah states Pharaoh's
cruelty in these terms:
Remember when Musa said to his people, "Remember Allah's
blessing to you when He rescued you from the people of Pharaoh.
They were inflicting an evil punishment on you, slaughtering your
sons and letting your women live. In that there was a terrible trial
from your Lord." And when your Lord announced: "If you are grate-
ful, I will certainly give you increase, but if you are ungrateful, My
punishment is severe." (Surah Ibrahim: 6-7)
Pharaoh exalted himself arrogantly in the land and divided its peo-