This unsent letter was ready to be made accessible to the general public back in 2003. Author- Shamil Basayev (Martyr, Insha’Allah). Date: after a magnificent reception accorded by the British Queen to Putin.However, on reflection, Shamil Basayev, had withdrawn the letter and the publication did not take place.
ChechenInfo editors have decided to publish this material as a historical-archival document, specifically for the British Prime Minister Cameron’s visit to Russia, having said that, the thoughts set forth in this letter by Emir of Caucasian Mujahideen have in no way lost their relevance and poignancy.
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From Emir of the Brigade of Martyrs Riyad-us-Saliheen Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris to the Queen of Great Britain Elizabeth II
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful!
Praise is to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.
I testify that there is no god but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His trusted messenger and signatory on behalf of all the prophets sent to this world as a great mercy to mankind.
Upon whom be peace and blessings of Allah and over his family, his companions over and above all, who would follow him until the Day of Judgement.
And then…
I must admit, the beginning of the letter causes me some difficulty. It is difficult to name two of God’s creations that are more distant than the Chechen Mujahid and the Queen of England.
But we, with all due and proper respect, are strangely connected to each other. And we are connected by mutual animosity.
God knows I would not ever wish to appear impolite, but I confess have not been able to find an appropriate form of greeting to address you. Welcoming you with the Islamic greeting is not possible, because you are an enemy of Islam. If I used the usual form, “Your Majesty,” that would not be acceptable, either, because I am a Muslim and an Islamic warrior. For us, Mujahideen, there is only one Greatness, greatness of Allah, may He be praised.
What made me send you an open letter are the events related to the magnificent reception that you and your entire royal family held in honour of the ringleader of the Kremlin’s criminal and political gang and war criminal Putin.
I can’t say that it was entirely unexpected for us. We always remember that Britain since the first of the Crusades and the colonial wars has been and continues to this day to remain the most implacable enemy of Islam and the Muslim world as a whole. England was the brain and the main headquarters of all the wars that Europe in the last century waged against Muslim countries.
Today, many believe that the brain centre of the struggle with Islam moved to America. But I think that it is still in England. If watch Bush and Blair closely enough, one simply cannot exclude such an interpretation. Bush, rustic average American who does not know the difference between Dublin and Belfast, is unlikely to be able to justify an attack on Iraq.
But excessive facial expression and shifty eyes give Blair the impression that this man could be a major initiator of a cynical, anti-Iraqi aggression.
19-th century was the peak of colonial expansion- both of European countries and of Russia against the Islamic world. Both France in the war against Algeria and Russia in the conflict with the Caucasus employed the identical tactics. The main stake was on the brutal military force and violence used to paralyze the resistance of Muslim people.
It goes without saying that the barbaric cruelty of the French could not compete with that of the Russians. Your own British colonial troops were not known for using humane methods, either. However, unlike other countries that practiced the colonial policy of outright genocide, you, British, we must admit found a more effective method of colonial subjugation of Muslim peoples.
In this connection it is worth mentioning a very well known to you personality- William Gladstone, a distant predecessor to Blair and his famous speech delivered at a meeting of the British Parliament in the late 19th century. I do not remember it verbatim, you probably know it better than I, but the essence was as follows. He raised his hand, which held the Quran and said that there would never be able to establish British authority in Egypt, while that book was in the hands of Muslims.
Obviously, many members of Parliament understood that the issue was not about the mechanical removal of the Book. You, the British, had spearheaded a sophisticated and insidious plan to cause a religious and ethnic division within the Muslim world.
You were able to divert the Muslims from their religion and instil in them the false and pernicious ideas that were not only contrary to Islam, but also against the common sense. Baath party is just one example.
You spent huge sums to establish cartoon dictatorships in Muslim countries. Any tyrant, who comes to power in most Muslim countries, has necessarily graduated from prestigious British or American university, has been recruited by your intelligence, and only then received “a license to dictatorial activities”.
Even today, almost 50 years after the fall of the colonial system, your plan continues to work. Only thanks to this scheme, your Anglo-American tandem with virtually no interference was able to penetrate Iraq and occupy it, in spite of the fact that it is surrounded by Muslim countries.
But truly, Allah guides not the unjust. By committing this aggression you gave the Muslims a unique rationale for a righteous battle. They do not need to cross the Atlantic or the Channel to get their enemy. Here he is- an enemy in your land, insolent, arrogant and deceitful, tramples your freedom and human dignity.
You can kill this enemy right on the doorstep of your home, protecting the peace of your household. You can be killed and win paradise. And this, in my opinion, is the truest demonstration of the greatest mercy of Allah.
I had to resort to a historical perspective to emphasize the basic idea – we Chechens are an integral part of the Islamic world, and that part of it, which leads an armed struggle for their religion and freedom.
We do not err at the expense of the true face of Western politicians. We are not confused about the terms, designed to hide the truth and besot people, such as “universal values”, “human rights”, and “international terrorism”, “Islamic fundamentalism”. And finally, we do not err at the expense of the true position of England with regards to Russian-Chechen war.
At the same time, Britain and Russia are different countries, even though they share the imperial past. From the stories of our Muslim brothers who came from the United Kingdom, we know that in your country you try to observe the social and civil rights of people. That is out of question in Russia. And we were told that in Great Britain cultural and historical traditions are respected more than anywhere else.
As one of these traditions, we should understand, is a royal reception held for well-known politicians from the other countries. That’s obvious. But one thing is not clear – how come that Putin was elected to be a guest of the royal house of the United Kingdom?
Of course, we cannot advise. British royal house may provide a reception who they wish to, even to the Emperor Bokassa. But we are in some bewilderment.
Apparently, we were not destined to understand the rules of English etiquette. When Putin meets Bush, Schroeder, Blair or Berlusconi, this is understandable – they have no scruples in the way to succeed and they are not particularly fastidious about choosing a political partner. Probably, this behaviour is due to the fact that the public forgets these politicians after the failure at the next elections. But it is quite another thing for you, the Queen of the United Kingdom, and your court.
You represent British decency, adherence to Christian morals and aristocratic nobility. And you take care of your reputation, probably in a different way than politicians do when seeking pre-election popularity.
Logically, you would have to be very picky in choosing the official guests and the people to whom you are showing signs of respect as the rest of the world are watching.
Before preparing a lavish and expensive ceremony, you probably have asked your advisors: “Who is Mr. Putin?”
Did they not alert you of his origins, his professional history and milestones of his political career? Or at least well-known fact that he did not hesitate to order poisoning about a thousand people in the Nord-Ost Theatre?
These are facts that are impossible not to know even with a full detachment from politics assisted by the total ignorance of your royal secret service.
If these facts were not really significant for you, then, given your dislike of Islam and Muslims, the fact that Putin is waging a war of extermination against the Chechen people may not have influenced your decision. Although the war crimes he committed against the Chechen people could come as a shock even to Milosevic himself. And he was condemned by your International Court.
For hundreds of years of struggle we have learned not to be surprised by barbarism, cruelty and treachery of the Russian authorities. But there are some unwritten laws prevailing even amongst the villains. There is a threshold that even the hardened criminals tend not to cross. And when this boundary is not visible we are talking not about the villain, we are talking about a sick man.
Putin has no such boundary. There is no baseness and brutality against the civilian population, which he would not allow his criminal army to perpetrate. There is no sense to specify everything. But the most revolting fact is that he has allowed his criminal scum to kill children and make fun of women. Only the scum of the earth, as you would say, could allow the same degenerates like him drop pregnant women from the helicopters, rape girls of twelve, shoot mother of six after they had just killed their father.
One cannot believe that this sick man is a family man and father of two daughters. He is not even smart enough to hide his involvement in these crimes. When asked by a woman working for a human rights organization why security forces are terrorizing the children in refugee camps, deprave women, Putin replied that he was aware of these things, but the interviewee did not know that the fathers of these children were suspected of involvement in “illegal armed groups”.
I do not think that you are not aware of these heinous crimes that Putin has sanctioned in a war against the Chechen people. To know all this you would have to consult the notorious Lord Judd.
I also think that you are aware of Putin’s policy to phase out of the rickety Russian democracy that had just been created before he came to power. And the whole world knows that today’s Kremlin regime fuels outright racism in international relations.
What you could possibly admire in this man? Oh, probably not the vulgar and cynical statements, which journalists like to quote and savour so much.
But if all the above that would cause an instant aversion in any ordinary person to Putin’s personality did not affect the decision to hold a reception in his honour, then one must assume, the British Royal House had more compelling reasons than those of ordinary people.
The two reasons could be the basis for the pompous reception of Putin.
Firstly, he is strong and dangerous political opponent one must cajole and not irritate. But this assumption does not hold water. Political pygmy, plucked from obscurity, could not possibly now frighten western countries in general and your country in particular. Moreover, the United Kingdom was not afraid to speak out firmly and to the point, when the Soviet Union was still alive and does not like the Russia of today, reminiscent of Burkina Faso with rusty missiles.
Secondly, during his term of office, he had rendered some significant service to the West, which needs to be rewarded. What could it be? Let me see, above all, a genocidal war against the Chechen people is being waged. And no matter how shocking details of this war become, it needs to be continued as long as there is threat of a resurgent Islamic state in the Caucasus. And when the situation is under control, suddenly the facts of “crimes against humanity” come to light and you dump all the blame on Putin and then you drop him like a hot potato.
Another achievement of Putin is that he is a merchant of strong statements about the revival of “former power of the country” whilst he is surrendering all the strategically important positions in favour of Western countries. US troops in Central Asia surprise no one. And the flights of US spy planes along the Georgian-Russian border have become commonplace.
In this case, all the events become logically connected. And Putin’s reception ceremony on your part is understandable. I even wonder why not you have elevated him to the knightly rank. It seems you have realized that “Sir” used to a primitive person like Putin would be too blatant.
And yet, you made the mistake of trying to raise the status of Putin. It does not matter. What matters is that the only thing you have achieved is humiliating your own dignity by deifying the man with the nature of a serial killer.
This suggests another conclusion. If in the all-out war you have declared to Islam, you are prepared to use any means, you are ready to ally with anyone and do not hesitate to show your friendship to people like Putin, that means you are doing badly. And the global anti-Islamic coalition, at which you have played an active part, is doing badly. And your royal dignity is not well at all.
You must feel that time is approaching when the lie, violence and rejection of the truth will not save you. The time of the Truth, the time of Islam is coming. We must all die and stand before the Lord. And when we do, neither the royal luster, nor tinsel or resourcefulness of mind is going to help us.
I encourage you to adequately prepare for the eternal, not to resist the truth and accept Islam as a member of your royal family, Princess Diana, had.
Abdullah Shamil Abu-Idris
Source: ChechenInfo
Kavkaz Center
