Madam, - Dr Gerard Toal's article on the Beslan school massacre (Opinion & Analysis, September 4th) shows how much he despises the US president, but does not explain much about the events, or the connections of the murderers.
Dr Toal mentions that 334 were killed but not that 186 were children. He also omits that it was an attack on Christian [ Orthodox] North Ossetia, where only 3.5 per cent of the population are Sunni Muslims - of Ingush or Chechen ethnicity. The aims of the terror chief Basayev included a North Caucasus Islamic emirate, from the Caspian to Black Seas, reminiscent of Hamas with its dream of an Islamic republic from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. Dr Toal also fails to tell us of the North London Finsbury Park Mosque Three, two of whom were Osman Larussi and Yacine Benalia, both killed at Beslan and both Algerian-born, and identified by the third, a senior aide to Basayev, Kamal Rabat Bouralha, detained by Russia in 2004.
All came to Chechnya in 2001 from London on their jihadist mission. Rather suggestive of global terror? And alongside such organisational and personnel links is the terrorists' jihadist version of Islam, which unites not only North Causacus conspiracies across ethno-linguistic lines, but also actively links them with other jihadis in all continents.
Can Dr Toal have let his desire for appeasement, cultural relativism, moral neutrality and political correctness slant his account, to the omission of salient considerations? - Yours, etc,
TOM CAREW, Ranelagh, Dublin, 6.