[Rudey]

Dude this is your observation. What happens if that one guy you think may or may not be paramilitary just decided to wear that or say he had some specific reason for wearing it.

As for Arab and Muslim, Chechans are Muslim and often have Arab fighters fighting with them. That's nothing new. Religious demands? These fighters aren't fighting for an hour off to go pray. Their religion is tied in with their nationalism. Arab Muslims are fighting with Chechan Muslims because of Islam.

-Rudey

Originally posted by RACooper
Yes just my word and my observations... of course it used to be my job for around 7 years. I'll try to help out:

Taken from BBC site:

Okay in above picture the military equipement, uniforms and helmets identify these men as members of the Special Forces... which unit I don't know as they don't tend to were unit identifiers on their combat uniforms.


Okay in the above picture we see people that aren't in uniforms (well complete), have different weapons of varying quality. The man in the front is a member of the police, while the others have no specific indentifiers.


Okay finally we have a good example... okay the man on the left is wearing a uniform of the old US Woodland pattern which marks him most likely as a paramilitary member (nice runners though)... while the men on the left also have a intersting collection of different pieces of uniforms (note the one with a visible weapon is also the only one with boots)... now the guy with the rifle is possibly a member of the military or of the regional militia... the others are almost certainly paramilitary.

As for Arab militants being invovled... most likely yes there are "Arab" mercenaries involved... but then again there are mercenaries from many ethnic groups serving with the Chechens or against them. I am still hesitant to lump this action in with the conveinant label of "Muslim Terrorists", as most if not all demands made no mention of religion, but instead demands for the release of collegues, and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya.