(Before and After Photos) 
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Mark Franchetti | April 27, 2009
E hunt for a nest of female suicide bombers in Chechnya led an elite group of Russian special forces commandos to a small village deep in the countryside. There they surrounded a modest house just before dawn to be sure of catching their quarry unawares.
When the order came to storm the single-storey property, dozens of heavily armed men in masks and camouflage uniforms - unmarked to conceal their identity - had no difficulty in overwhelming the three women inside. Their captives were then driven to a military base.
The soldiers were responding to a tip-off that the eldest of the three, who was in her 40s, had been indoctrinating women to sacrifice themselves in Chechnya's ferocious war between Islamic militants and the Russians. The others captured with her were her latest recruits. One was barely 15.
"At first the older one denied ...
