Passengers rush out of a hijacked airliner after Saudi forces stormed the plane
From the outset, they identified themselves with the Chechen cause, but it was difficult to determine who they actually were. Now they've allegedly been identified as Chechens who had previously fought against the Russian forces in Chechnya. That's an allegation from sources in the Chechen diaspora in Jordan, who even claimed to have revealed the names of the hijackers to Russian TV.
As expected, however, Aslan Mashkadov, the popularly elected president of what remains of Chechnya and a leading commander of the Chechen resistance, issued a statement through an envoy condemning the hijacking and denying any responsibility. There's a sea of conflicting reports about what transpired on the plane. But the motive is clearly as we suspected — to bring world attention to the plight of Chechnya at the hands of the Russians.
How does it play for the Kremlin that Saudi Arabia resolved the crisis?
Russians are simply happy that the hijacking has ended quickly and with minimal bloodshed, which isn't always the case in this country. From the Kremlin's point of view, it could have been a lot worse.
The Saudis stormed the plane at the behest of the Russians, lest it be allowed to fly on to Afghanistan — as the hijackers demanded — where the Russians would have had a much harder time dealing with the crisis. But now that they have the passengers back, the question that looms large will be whether they'll get the hijackers, too. It's by no means clear that the Saudis will rush to turn over the suspected hijackers.
In the past, acts of terror blamed on Chechens have prompted Moscow to escalate its military activity in Chechnya. Is there any chance of that happening now?
I don't think they'd go that far right now. But they're certainly saying that the hijacking raises concern over Islamic terror throughout the Russian Federation, and have called for intensified security and vigilance. And the hijacking will also be cited as evidence to back President Putin's argument that terrorism from the Caucasus threatens not only the entire region, but also the West as well, as part of a global threat against which the U.S. and Russia are united.
Chechnya remains a low-intensity conflict that at this point has no end. The Russian body count is low, but steady. Public opinion on the Russian presence there is all over the place. When pollsters ask whether Putin has done the right thing in Chechnya, the answer is overwhelmingly yes. But if people are asked whether they'd send their own sons there, the answer is no. The patriotic euphoria of a couple of years ago has played out.