Kenna has been upgraded to a category 4 hurricane today. It has moved it’s path and is expected make landfall on the Mexican coast near Puerto Vallarta.

UPDATE: Kenna is now a category 5 and is expected to come ashore Friday afternoon. Forcasters say it may weaken a bit, but is potentially catastrophic.

Al Qaeda and Moscow
Mark Riebling and R.P. Eddy make the al Qaeda connection in the Moscow theatre hostage taking in todays NRO. It is chilling.

In any case, the Chechens who stormed the stage of a musical drama in Moscow have now mounted the global stage.>/p>

This suits them well. Even before 9/11, the Chechen cause never garnered much press beyond Europe. As on 9/11, the likely victims of the Moscow attack are from many nations: Citizens not only of Russia but of the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Australia, Belarus, Bulgaria, and Azerbaijan are among the hostages.

The Moscow-theater event would seem to be the second recent strike in which more than two-dozen jihadists planned to commit suicide, and to kill large numbers of “infidels,” in a very public way. The first such operation was mounted on 9/11.

…and finally, although I don’t think all Americans are obsessing about the Virginia/Maryland/Washington snipers…

It may be natural for Americans to obsess more about a sniper in the suburbs of their own capital than about Chechen rebels in Russia’s. But the U.S. embassy has announced that two unidentified Americans are among the hostages half a world a way. And if 9/11 has taught us anything, it’s that half a world away is not so far anymore.

The IVth Myth
David Frum’s fourth installment of a five part series addresses whether Americans care about what the rest of the world thinks.