Russian 9/11?

I was unexpectedly kept away from an internet connection until now, so I apologize for belatedly replying to messages.

While I was away, it seems as if my worst fears have been confirmed two-fold: Russian forces have stormed the school resulting in over 200 people dead and the attack was financed by Chechen terrorist leader Basavey and an al Qaeda cell.

I'm still shifting through the information at this time so I don't have much to add, but you must visit Stygius's site. He has some must read commentary on the sitaution here, here, and he replies to my posts right here. (Which by the way, I will wait until tomorrow to reply to, if only for the fact that I want to see what Putin does now that there's a clear al Qaeda connection.)

What I do want to address tonight is that, I have seen several people in the blogsphere ask why al Qaeda would be stupid enough to give Putin the provocation to intensify and/or expand the war in Chechnya to other Caucaus States? First, I obviously don't know their real motive, but I can speculate based upon the information available.

The initial line of reasoning for these series of attacks was to delay an "imminent" war between Russia and Georgia by keeping Putin distracted. Well, that seemed plausible at first, but now Russia knows al Qaeda was behind this attack. If anything, Putin will use this to speed up an invasion of Georgia's Pankisi Gorge. I can't help but feel that this is what al Qaeda wants the Russian's to do. Maybe draw them in like what the Chechen's did to the Russian's in Grozny (Chechen capital) in 1995 and decemimate them. As a result, the retreating Russian army razed the city
Or with the Iraqi Jihad not going as well as could be expected they might be trying to redeem their credibility by going up against the Russians once again. The fabled Afghan campaign against the Soviets is still looked at with admiration by many people in the Middle East.