JNN 26 Nov 2010 Grozny : Chechnya “needs neither good, nor bad Wahabis,” Kadyrov said. “Such an approach must be applied everywhere. Otherwise, they will again start moving at the slightest relaxation on the part of the authorities. But, I give my word, not in Chechnya,” the Chechen leader said

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that Wahhabism cannot be eradicated with half-measures.

“Wahabis did not come along today or yesterday. They have been around for a long time. And prominent Islamic religious figures noted that they bring woes, sufferings, destruction and shed blood,” Kadyrov said after a prayer service at a mosque, according to the Chechen government’s website.

“There are people who are trying to present this movement as an innocent phenomenon, as some doctrine, and who characterize Wahabis as almost the most gentle people,” he said.

“This is self-deception. This is deception of thousands of people who might think that this is how things are. In reality, their [Wahabis’] key goal is to cause chaos, to kill primarily those are really Muslim, who truly believe in Allah and revere the Prophet,” Kadyrov said.

He cited multiple examples of “atrocities” by Wahabis, having recalled how “they shot dead a well-known North Caucasus religious figure in the Vedeno District, how they broke into a house in Geldagan and killed a 72-year-old imam when he was reading Quran, although all he asked for was not mercy but to let him finish reading the Surah,” Kadyrov said.

“There is nothing saint for them. A son can kill his father if he criticizes him. He can kill his brother. By acting like this they are seeking to denigrate Muslims, to set them against millions of people who do not understand the difference between Wahabis and true believers,” the Chechen leader said.

As a Chechen mufti and later the first Chechen president, Ahmad Kadyrov “emphasized the need to wage against Wahabis, while admitting that this evil can spread across many regions if it is not nipped in the bud,” he said.

“However, in the 1990s and even in the early years of this decade the majority of regional leaders did not see the whole depth of the problem and denied the existence of such a threat. Wahhabism was brought to Chechnya by Bagautdin Kizilyurtovsky. There (in Dagestan) he was not dealt with on time, so the ‘infection’ spread, and today we are harvesting the consequences of irresponsibility shown by the authorities and public in those years,” Kadyrov added.

Chechnya “needs neither good, nor bad Wahabis,” he said. “Such an approach must be applied everywhere. Otherwise, they will again start moving at the slightest relaxation on the part of the authorities. But, I give my word, not in Chechnya,” the Chechen leader said.

“No criminal will remain unpunished for attempting on the life of law enforcement officers or ordinary citizens or organizing such crimes,” Kadyrov said.