Customer Reviews

The Wolves of Islam: Russia and the Faces of Chechen Terror

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This is the first time I have written a review on Amazon, but I have been bothered by the Wolves of Chechnya since I finished it a week ago. The people whose reviews I read who gave this book five stars either have an agenda, or have little knowledge of the issues and lack critical reading skills.

My first complaint is that the author does not cite ANY sources. Not even with a bibliography! He writes something in the beginning about synthesizing different sources of information and then drawing the most logical conclusion, though it appears that he more likely swallowed the Kremlin's version of history and puked it back up wholesale.

Murphy also tries to portray the Chechens as partners with al Qaeda, which is a laughable contention. Though Murphy writes that "al Qaeda" trained fighters to send into Chechnya, these fighters were actually trained at Khattab's camps, which were created, organized, staffed, and funded through a distinctly separate apparatus from bin Laden's. After their falling out, Khattab despised bin Laden. They did not cooperate.

And while plenty of Arabs made their way to fight jihad in Chechnya, no Chechens returned the favor. Mr. Murphy has it plain wrong when he writes that Chechens were caught in Afghanistan. Many journalists dutifully listed Chechen, along with Saudi, Yemeni, Pakistani, et al, when referring to al Qaeda's foreign fighters. But when the caves were cleared, there were actually no Chechens. A real expert--or at least an unbiased one--would know that.

I could go on with more specifics, but suffice it to say that an appearance of bias, combined with a failure to cite any sources, combined with factual errors and analytic weakness, makes this not the best choice of reading material for anyone.

In 2004 schoolchildren were massacred in a horrifying murder scene in Russia which shook the world and was led by one Shamil Basayev, leader of the terrorist Wolves. Paul Murphy's The Wolves Of Islam: Russia And The Faces Of Chechen Terror deftly examines the disaster and the terrorist group connected to it and other terrorist actions in the region, providing the author's counterterrorist insider's viewpoint in analyzing the faces of Chechen terrorism and Islamic insurgent forces at work in the region. The result is an impressively involving, frightening, informative, and thought provoking survey of immense importance.

This is by far the best most informative book about the war and terrorism in Chechnya. It is not your average book about Chechnya which is either by Liberals making excuses for the terrorist's actions, or by the extreme Conservatives who just hate all Muslims. This book is fair and balanced! It gives a history of the conflict, and follows the Islamic radicalizing of the Chechen rebels under Shamil Basayev. And it shows how Aslan Maskadov first was against the Jihad and then joined it, and how the fight went from a struggle for independence to a religious war. The Chechen Jihad is connected with Al-Quaida, with terrorist training camps in the Caucasus and Afghanistan, and cells all over Europe. Many Americans who are interested in the War on Terror did not realize how many Arabs and foreighn Muslims go to Chechnya to fight. The most terrifying new development, that was only touched on by this book, how Bin Laden is recruiting terrorists from Chechnya, who do not look Arabic, to operate in Europe and even in the USA! For anyone who might have been misled by propoganda about Chechen "freedom fighters," written by Liberal apologists, this book will be an eye-opener. The author is an American counter-terrorism expert and a former congressional adviser on Russia and Chechnya. The book is "just the facts", so it is a little "dry" and may take awhile to read, but it is worth it. VERY IMPORTANT AND EXCELLENT BOOK, VERY RECCOMMENDED!

After having been kidnapped, beaten, tortured and raped by Chechens rebels only days after the resignation of Gorbachev, I have but only sympathy for the "decent" Chechens who must bear witness to the daily horrors forced upon them by fanatics who possess not an shred of decency nor a human heartbeat.

Paul Murphy writes an extremely close account of the truth.

It's such a pity that the majority of human beings on this planet choose not to pay heed.

Well done Paul Murphy!

-Yvonne Bornstein, Author, Eleven Days Of Hell

This book is highly biased and lacks balance. It might be fine as an "opinion piece", if it wasn't so simplistic and riddled with factual inaccuracies (by this I do not refer to the author's bias, but undisputed facts. As a random example, consider his warning of the danger of Chechen access to Osmium 187. The latter is in fact a non-fissile, non-radioactive substance, unregulated by any American or international agency, which can easily be purchased from legitimate sources. It is not useful for making "mini-nukes" (as the author describes them), dirty bombs or other weapons). This problem is complicated by unreferenced assertions and the lack of a bibliography. The intelligence of the reader is further insulted by the failure of the editor to even correct spelling mistakes. Anyone sufficiently familiar with the region, its history and politics will easily recognise the lack of credibility of this book. It is more likely aimed at an audience unfamiliar with the region (which may be most readers, since this conflict is rarely covered by the news media, except when something sensational happens, and even then information tends to be limited and disputed) or else those who wish merely to confirm their existing biases. Readers unfamiliar with Chechnya who actually wish to understand the conflict might prefer to seek a book that is accurate, informative and balanced. In this case, the author blindly supports the Russian government's version of events, but it would be equally problematic for someone to blindly relate the Chechen version of history. Just give us the facts, and both perspectives, please - American (and international) readers are intelligent enough to make up our own minds.

This is an excellent book about the history terrorism in Chechnya and its effect on Russia and the world today. From Shamil Basayev (aka Russia's Osama bin Laden) to Aslan Mashkadov, the anti-Jihadist Chechen president who later joined forces with Basayev for reasons of his own, author Paul Murphy chronicles the history of terrorist activities in Chechnya from 1991 to 2004 in crisp, precise language. If you are a reader who's interested in current events and the history of terrorism, especially Chechen terrorist activities, then get this book and read it.

For any one looking for a nuanced analysis of the complex Chechen conflict stay away from this sensationalistic nonsense. The book is an anti-Chechen diatribe with no footnotes that repeats every fiction about the Chechens as 'fact.' For example the author over and over again repeats the Kremlin propaganda that the Chechen highland warriors are fighting for Al Qaeda. This despite the fact that the Chechens have been fighting to expel the Russians from their ancient homeland since the late 1700s (hundreds of years before Bin Laden). This book is dangerous because it reduces the Chechen tragedy to an AL Qaeda subplot. The author deliberately misleads his audience with this shrill work that resembles pro-Kremlin propaganda. Anyone looking for a serious work on the Chechens should read Sebastian Smith's Allah's Mountains or Khasan Baiyev's the Oath and skip this footnoteless tedious dross.

Rare is the book or author who understands the concept of the perpetual jihad. But Paul Murphy, who uses that term in his preface, gets it. The jihad is not about land or politics, but about obtaining perpetual Islamic rule and law worldwide. Chechens like to compare their national character to the wolf, because it will attack a stronger foe, and they do it in the name of Islam.

Had Russia recognized Chechnya after the first recent war ended in 1996, moreover, the process of perpetual jihad would merely have been hastened, he adds, since Chechnya's president could not control the criminal gangs who sought to take Russian territory in Dagestan "to carve out their new Islamic state in the North Caucasus.

The principal character in this drama is Shamil Basayev, a Sufi Naqshbandi Islamist, heir to a deputy of the Imam Shamil who fought Russia in the 19th century Murid Wars, from 1830 to 1859. Credited to his name (if you can call it that) are the 1995 attack on a Russian hospital, and his famous 1991 hijacking of a Russian airliner and his 1996 Grozny offensive. He has a $5 million price on his head, but even this has not stopped the Sufi terrorist, who is a favorite with foreign journalists.

Basayev seeks to reestablish the imamate, which he envisions to encompass Dagestan, Ingushetia, North Ossetia and Karachaevo-Cherkessia, ultimately stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, a vision supported by Chechen president Dzokhar Dudayev, who took office illegally on November 2 1991--a month before the USSR was dissolved.

On November 9, 1991, Basayev went with Said-Ali Satuyev and Lom-Ali Chachayev to the Russian town of Mineralnye Vody, where they hijacked a plane with 178 passengers to Turkey. They threatened to explode the aircraft and all its passengers if Russia did not lift the state of emergency imposed on Chechnya.

In Georgia, in July 1992, the Grozny Confederation of Caucasus Mountain People Parliament sent troops to fight for the independence of Abkhazia; it is a documented fact that the veins of captured Georgian soldiers were cut open and the victims made to toast the Chechnyan victors with their own blood. Worse, 100 Georgian soldiers were herded into a central stadium and beheaded; their heads were used as footballs in a soccer match.

Basayev lost 56 men in the Abkhaz Battalion. But when he returned to Chechnya in February 1994, he had created a combat ready force to serve President Dudayev. Then Basayev and 20 men went to Afghanistan to train in the Amir Muawia camp (which U.S. cruise missiles hit in August 1998 in an attempt to kill bin Laden).

In June 1993, Basayev stormed the town hall in Grozny to disrupt a protest of Dudayev's string of undemocratic actions, and disbanded demonstrations in Tealtralnaya Square, killing at least 30 people. The attacks on the opposition continued in 1994, and Basayev took a key role in defending Dudayev against Russian-backed forces and 47 Russian tanks. Basayev attacked with rocket propelled grenades and took 21 Russian soldiers hostage.

During the first Chechen war, from 1994 through 1996, Basayev's forces rose in number to at least 2,000--some say 10,000. In December 1994, Russia sent 24,000 troops into Grozny to disarm "illegal armed formations and restore constitutional order." Chechen forces opened fire with a huge arsenal of grenade launchers, flamethrowers and a modified warhead that could blow the top of any tank with one hit. They destroyed the entire Russian brigade, killing about 1,000 Russian troops.

The Chechen atrocities were horrific. In one case, a Russian soldier was nailed to a cross and mutilated there. His own penis was cut off and stuffed in his mouth. It took Russia until early 1995 to control the last stronghold of resistance, in the village of Shatoi.

These terrorist exploits were followed by a gargantuan suicide mission in the summer of 1995. On a budget of $35,000, Basayev purchased trucks and a car to transport terrorists to Russia and pay bribes at the border. In Budennovsk, his men shot every policeman in sight at the local police station, raised the Chechen flag over city hall, killed 41 townspeople and captured the local hospital, where hundreds of hostages were imprisoned. To garner a press conference, he murdered five hostages. Sixteen days after the siege began, 143 hostages were dead and 415 people wounded--and Russia had been compelled to call a cease fire in Chechnya. In all there had been 1,600 victims.

And this was just the beginning for Basayev, a man Murphy calls Russia's Osama bin Laden.

In all, the 280-page book catalogs the gruesome details of more than 240 terror attacks with thousands of victims.

The one fault with this volume is that Murphy ascribes all the evil to the influence of the Wahabbi sect. But Basayev and his followers are all Naqshbandi Sufis, and they are following a jihad tradition that is 1,400 years old, inscribed in the theological and legal doctrines of all major branches of the faith, as attested in Andrew Bostom's The Legacy of Jihad.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

This book seems to be a synthesis of both Pentagon disinformation and Kremlin propaganda. There is no evidence that US forces have ever engaged, killed or captured ethnic Chechens in the War on Terror (though there were other muslims from the Russian Federation in US custody in Guantanamo Bay). There is also no evidence that Chechens were fighting the Pakistani military in Waziristan (though Uzbeks were apparently present). And the most ludicrous one, Chechens in Iraq, it sounds interesting, but I'm not even sure if Fox news would still tout that one. Buy this book if you like armchair clearing house style, junk journalism.

Osmium 187 is a component of nuclear bombs, not the fissionable material.

"The security services keep the illegal trade in precious metals under constant control, but the sale of osmium-187 attracted their attention also for another reason. It is a strategic dual-purpose material used in the defence industry as a catalyst to increase the blast range of a nuclear bomb. "