Islamist rebel vows 'maximum force' to stop Sochi Olympics

(Reuters) - Russian Islamist rebel leaders urged their fighters on Wednesday to use "maximum force" to prevent President Vladimir Putin staging the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.


In an online video recorded in a forest, Doku Umarov said an order not to attack Russian targets outside the North Caucasus had been cancelled and likened holding the Games in the Black Sea city to performing "Satanic dances" on the graves of Muslims killed fighting Russian forces there in the 19th century.

Umarov sat wearing camouflage fatigues and a cap in front of a black jihadist flag, flanked by two fighters who, like him, were bearded. As he spoke, birds could be heard singing in the forest around him.

Sochi, which is due to host the Games next February, is a few hundred kilometers (miles) from the volatile and mountainous North Caucasus region in southern Russia where there is almost daily violence. It was the homeland of ethnic Circassians until they were expelled in the 19th century.

Putin has promised tight security at the Games, on which Russia is spending more than $50 billion, and sees it as a chance to show the world what his nation can achieve.

"They (Russia) plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many dead Muslims, buried on the territory of our land on the Black Sea, and we as mujahideen are obliged to not permit that, using any methods allowed us by the almighty Allah," Umarov said in the four-minute video on www.kavkazcenter.com.