Russia's top Islamist leader Doku Umarov called in a video released on Wednesday for militants to stage attacks against a range of targets that include the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games. The message comes seven months before the international sports event is due to open in the Black Sea resort city, a project President Vladimir Putin personally endorsed to showcase Russia to the world.
In the latest challenge to the $50 billion project, Umarov said he is cancelling his previous "moratorium" on attacks and called on jihadists to "exert maximum efforts" to prevent the Games from being held "on the bones of our ancestors". "We know that on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many Muslims who died and are buried on our territory along the Black Sea, today they plan to stage the Olympic Games," said Umarov, filmed sitting in a wooded area with two other men. "We, as the Mujahedeen, must not allow this to happen by any means possible," he said, while a bird chirped loudly in the background. Sochi is located in the immediate proximity of Russia's North Caucasus - an volatile region that has witnessed two post-Soviet wars in Chechnya and daily violence in Dagestan region.