Take a look at how this front-page New York Times article describes the perpetrators of the siege in Beslan. Notice anything? The killers are called “guerrillas” and “fighters” and “armed captors” but not “terrorists.” At one point the article grudgingly refers to these savage murderers as “people that Mr. Putin calls terrorists.” In more than 1,750 words, the article includes not one reference to the religion of the Muslim perpetrators. Not one.

Update: Stan from Logic & Sanity sent me a link to this Washington Post article on links between al Qaeda and the Muslim rebels in Chechnya. Money quote:

“There are no more al Qaeda camps” in Chechnya, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in February. “But there is still al Qaeda money. . . . There are instructors who are working, there are mercenaries from a number of Muslim countries recruited by radicals. Unfortunately, all that still exists there.”

Update II: The FReepers are ticked off at the NY Times too.

Update III: Meanwhile, Allahpundit has a sobering reminder about Vladimir Putin.