WHO TRIED TO WHACK CHUBAIS?

Anatoly Chubais is a leading right-of-center critic and rival of Putin. And like YUKOS' jailed former CEO - Mikhail Khodorkovsky - he's a wealthy man with the means to finance a campaign which could threaten Putin.

Someone tried - BUT FAILED- to ASSASSINATE Chubais this morning by blowing him up as his motorcade drove by - IN OTHER WORDS: IN THE SAME WAY RAFIK HARIRI WAS ASSASSINATED (by agents from a former USSR/KGB client state: SYRIA).

And of course, PUTIN IS A FORMER KGB AGENT.

You connect the dots...

(Interfax):

The armed attack on Anatoly Chubais Thursday morning was politically motivated and is not related to his activity as CEO of Unified Energy Systems (UES), said member of the Union of Right Forces political council Boris Nemtsov. "Chubais is a government official, but it is absolutely obvious to me that the attempt on his life is political in its nature, and this is not related to the ongoing reformation of UES," Nemtsov said in an interview with Interfax. Chubais has received threats for years, Nemtsov said. "These threats have been coming from his political enemies," and "many did not feel ashamed to publicly threaten Chubais with reprisals," he said.

YAHOO/"REUTERS":

In his first comment since the attack, Chubais said he knew who wanted him dead, but did not name them, and refused to be intimidated. "Everything that I have done -- in reforming the country's power sector, and in uniting the country's democratic parties -- I will continue doing, with twice the strength," Chubais said in a one-paragraph statement.

Because of what he's doing in Georgia, and did in with Saddam, and doing in Iran, and tried to do in Ukraine - and what he's doing in Russia - Putin must be watched VERY carefully: he's a "Little Stalin" - and growing rapidly, I fear...

UPDATES:

RIA/NOVOSTI: "'The criminals escaped in the forest and reached the Minskoye highway where a car was waiting for them,' said the source. Reportedly it was a dark Saab. Chubais' motorcade was attacked on Thursday morning when it was leaving the Zhavoronki village not far from the Minskoye highway. The RAO UES chief was not injured. An unidentified explosive device went off between the BMW car with Chubais in it and a Mitsubishi Lancer carrying his bodyguards, a law enforcement source told RIA Novosti."

FOCUS: "... Russian authorities have found the car, used by the attackers of Anatoli Chubais, who escaped after the attempt for his murder, Interfax reported. According to the information, the car found is a green “Saab”. The owner of the car has been ascertained and now police is searching his house. A situation of emergency was declared in seven regions in Moscow in relation to the assassination attempt ..."

UPDATE #2: Welcome Betsy's Page readers! Betsy makes the EXCELLENT contextual point that Yuschenko was ALSO the intended target of an assassination attempt - using dioxin. BUT BY WHOM? Maybe we should have Kofi and the U.N. "investigate" it, like they're "investigating" the Hariri assassination? Heh.

*****UPDATE #3: Ummmm... here's a question: in spy movies, what is the MOST COMMON RANK for an evil KGB agent? YUP: Colonel. SO!? Get this:

(Interfax) - According to one of the investigation's theories, Thursday's assassination attempt on UES CEO Anatoly Chubais may have been organized by a former serviceman, a sabotage operations expert. Law enforcement sources told Interfax that the investigation has determined the license number of the Saab vehicle the attackers allegedly used to escape from the crime scene. As a result, the apartment of the car's owner on Berezhkovskaya Naberezhnaya has been found. "Investigators presume that the attack on Chubais was committed by the husband of the car's owner, a military pensioner and a sabotage operations specialist who was born in 1948," the source said.

(ITAR/TASS): The detained man whose name has not been disclosed yet is a retired colonel of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. ... “The retired colonel was an expert in acts of sabotage and it should not be ruled out that it was he who masterminded the attack on the top manager of the country’s energy company,” sources in the team of investigators said.

I wonder who this "retired" Colonel was working for?? Could it be Vladimir?