Revisiting Russia's Apartment Block Blasts

Two hundred and eighty-three people died in their sleep in September 1999 as the result of a series of four apartment block explosions throughout Russia. When Vladimir Putin found a “Chechen trace,” the explosions were used as justification for the Russian invasion of Chechnya. Since then critics have pointed to evidence that the blasts were the work of the Federal Security Service (FSB). Yet pending further evidence, the simplest, clearest explanation for the apartment block blasts is that they were perpetrated by Islamist extremists from the North Caucasus who were seeking retribution for federal military attacks upon the Islamist enclave in the central Dagestani villages of Karamakhi, Chabanmakhi, and Kadar.