BRITAIN

BRITAIN
Daily Telegraph, London, Sept. 8: Vladimir Putin's refusal to negotiate with Chechen separatists will find a broad echo among Russians. Hatred of the Chechens was strong enough before last week. Beslan will have intensified it and thereby further legitimized Putin's refusal to compromise.
However, on solving the Chechen problem, Putin seems to have run out of options. He has tried the military one in the shape of a second war, which gave the Kremlin control of the plain, but left the population largely disaffected.
He has embarked on the political one through Chechenisation, but that was probably given the coup de gr & acirc;ce in May by the assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin's prot & eacute;g & eacute;. By treating all separatists as beyond the pale, the president has boxed himself into a corner in which political legitimacy is spuriously claimed through rigged elections.
Given the deep-seated corruption of the Russian security forces and bureaucracy, this is unlikely to be the last incident of its kind.
Reputation suffering
With each new terrorist attack, Putin's reputation as the strongman who can sort out Chechnya will suffer. At the moment, he is riding on a wave of sympathy for the dead and grieving in North Ossetia. But questions are being asked about his handling of the siege, both within Russia and abroad, notably from the Dutch presidency of the European Union and Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the French prime minister.
Having propelled President Putin to power, Chechnya has become a wasting asset.
INDIA
Pioneer, New Delhi, Sept. 6: The bloody outcome of the hostage crisis in Beslan, North Ossetia, has united not only Russia but the entire free world in grief. The horrific tragedy should leave no doubts-even among "human rights" do-gooders-about the savage nature of Chechnya's so-called "war of independence."
Its wagers, like their atavistic kin elsewhere, proved the enemies of civilization the day they made bloodletting a rite of passage towards perverted ends.
When children are not merely caught in crossfires, when they are coldly and consciously made to go as lambs to slaughter, it is an outrage against humanity. In the past few years, Russia has suffered as much as India in terms of loss of life owing to terrorist depredations.
Secessionist movements
Chechen "separatism" has a Kashmiri cousin. Both secessionist "movements" stand hijacked by foreign elements. The latter have been spreading their tentacles via cooption of localized strife, in depraved pursuit of "world domination" through regional destabilization. Nine ultras liquidated in Beslan were West Asian.
Russians seem to have a false sense of security about the remoteness of terror, seen as afflicting Chechnya alone. The Moscow theatre strike in 2002 should have put paid to this illusion. Beslan itself followed the downing of two airliners and a suicide blast in Moscow.
Though President Vladimir Putin's iron will to crush insurgency has never been doubted, Russia's anti-terror campaign appears reactive rather than proactive, hitting out only after the tragic event. It demands a sense of urgency, flowing from popular mobilisation and preparedness.
Russia must have the wherewithal to anticipate sneak attacks, and could learn from India in this regard. Finally, the world must stand by it as solidly as for post-9/11 America.
EGYPT
Egyptian Gazette, Cairo, Sept. 7: The U.S.-backed interim Iraqi government hoped the capture of Saddam Hussein's second-in- command would be a feather in its cap. But the Iraqi government ended up with egg all over its face, calling into question their cohesion and credibility. First they said they'd apprehended Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. Then they said they hadn't. The announcement was paradoxically made by senior officials in the Iraqi government.
Al-Douri's detention would not have been more timely. It would have boosted the morale of the U.S. and Iraqi forces, proving that they are moving toward re-establishing security in post-Saddam Iraq. Washington has long blamed al-Douri for orchestrating attacks against its troops. His arrest, therefore, would have deprived the anti-U.S. insurgents of a major mastermind. The problem is that early announcements that al-Douri was in Iraqi hands after a battle in Tikrit have been withdrawn. It may turn out to have been an illusion by the U.S. satraps in Baghdad.
Quasi-endemic anarchy
The U.S. command in Iraq and the embattled government of Ayad Allawi were hoping for a propaganda coup from netting al-Douri, distracting attention away from the quasi-endemic anarchy in the country. His detention would have sealed the fate of the Saddam regime once and for all. Furthermore, it would take the lid off the atrocities perpetrated under the toppled dictator. It would certainly raise more voices to bring Saddam and his lieutenants to justice. But until, or if, al-Douri is arrested (or Sunday's first report is verified), the confusion surrounding his capture continues to demonstrate the new government's ineffectiveness and wishful thinking.
ITALY
Corriere della Sera, Milan, Sept. 8: Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, two Italian women not yet in their 30s, are the first western women that have been kidnapped in Iraq. They are not in Baghdad by chance, nor for money, nor for adventure, but to bring concrete aid to a tormented population.
Total war
All of this was not enough to save them from being kidnapped. One would imagine that the terrorists knew it, and for this reason they seized them. To demostrate that they do not discriminate. That we are the enemy, all of us, pacifists or interventionists does not matter, because theirs is a total war against the West.
Like with all terrorists, also with those that kidnapped these women and threaten their young lives, it is necessary to isolate them and dissolve the ambiguity towards a fundamentalist terrorism that must be fought with the same determination whoever the victim in turn may be.