Why Chechnya conflict influences Russian action in Syria

(CNN)For Russia, the assassination of its ambassador in Turkey may only be the beginning of a new chapter in a long, gloomy book. He shouted his support for the traumatized people of Aleppo, but exactly who the killer represented is still unknown -- or if he simply acted on his own. Ghastly, theatrical and public, the murder of Andrey Karlov at an Ankara art gallery -- videoed in minute and painful detail -- marks perhaps the latest episode in Russia's long fight with Islamic radicalism, or, from the opposing point of view, those who seek retribution for what they see as Russian "war crimes" in the past decades. It stretches back well past the last decade, and the more...