Insider notes from United Press International for Sept. 26 ...
Symbols are important. Videotape just released by the Chechen rebels confirms what U.S. intelligence has suspected -- and what Russian President Vladimir Putin has long claimed -- that the Chechen's so-called "moderate" leader Aslan Maskhadov has bowed to the Islamicist hard-liners and gone "jihadi." On the tape, his commentary on the shooting down of a Russian military helicopter, he is seen wearing epaulets inscribed with verses from the Koran. Behind him was the rebels' green flag, which used to feature the Chechen nationalist emblem of a wolf of Ichkeria, has been replaced by Koranic verse and a scimitar. The result looks very like the flag of Saudi Arabia, reflecting the puritanical and intolerant Wahhabi sect of Islam. At one point in the videotape, which Russian officials have made available to the Americans, Maskhadov refers to the armed men in camouflage gear surrounding him as "Mujahedin." American enthusiasm for getting the Russians back to the negotiating table with Maskhadov has accordingly nose-dived. The Russians, who have been warning for months that the Chechens were snuggling ever deeper into bed with al Qaida, are raising a new hot potato -- the question of Saudi funding for the Chechens.
Gen. Charles De Gaulle famously once sighed that his job as French President was impossible -- how could anyone govern a country that produced 246 different varieties of cheese? It's now even tougher. A new French cheese fair has just opened in Paris that features exactly 1,000 of them.
European diplomats are increasingly convinced by the conspiracy theory being put around by Arab colleagues that the Israel attack on the Muqata, Yasser Arafat's compound, was deliberately launched to block a planned internal Palestinian coup that would have sidelined Arafat and made moderate Abu Mazen the prime minister. The theory goes that a moderate new Palestinian leadership was the last thing that Israeli premier Ariel Sharon wanted; Sharon would rather keep the discredited figure of Arafat in place. The highly credible new twist to this theory is that the Americans unwittingly tipped Sharon off to the Sept. 20 meeting that was supposed to launch the political coup against Arafat. As usual when they want to arrange Israeli travel permits and passes to get through the curfews and blockades, the Palestinians asked the American consulate to help -- and under the security liaison procedures set up by CIA Director George Tenet, the Israelis usually cooperate. But in asking the Israelis to issue the permits for the members of the Fatah central committee to meet with Arafat at the Ramallah HQ, the Americans alerted the Israelis to the prospect of the putsch. The travel permits were delayed and Sharon sent the bulldozers rolling in -- on what was in effect a political rescue mission for Arafat.
Reports are coming in from diplomatic eye-witnesses of serious riots in Damascus over the last weekend that sound worrying for the still fledgling regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. What began as protest demonstrations in the suburb of Kabas against one of Bashar's "Modernization" projects, a new road building scheme, turned into wider anti-regime riots that raged through Saturday and Sunday and overwhelmed the riot police. Order was restored when the army was brought in Sunday, and began using live ammunition. Interestingly, the Syrian army then proceeded to use a tactic they had learned from the Israelis, deploying armored bulldozers to destroy the houses of those presumed to be responsible. They flattened half of Kabas -- which goes to show that young President Bashar is a softie compared to his late father, Hafiz al Assad. Faced with dissent in the town of Hamah in 1982, the old man flattened the place with artillery and paved over the rubble -- and the 10,000-plus corpses.
Placido Domingo is used to accolades from opera audiences and critics, but this week he received tributes from an unexpected quarter -- or rather, two quarters. First he heard from Buckingham Palace that Queen Elizabeth II was pleased to make him a Knight of the British Empire for his services to music. The next day King Juan Carlos of Spain conferred on the Spanish-born international tenor the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit, the highest decoration available to a distinguished civilian. As a non-Brit he won't be entitled to call himself Sir Placido; still top honors from two reigning monarchs within a few days of each other are a hard act to follow. Pavarotti, eat your heart out.
