Get Circumcised, Angry Putin Tells Reporter

President Vladimir Putin has suggested that anyone who wants to criticise Russia's campaign in Chechnya should join the rebels in their Islamist holy war, adding that they could enhance their prospects of being accepted into the ranks by travelling to Moscow to be circumcised.

Visibly enraged at being lectured and questioned about his policies in Chechnya, the Russian president rounded bizarrely on a journalist from the French daily Le Monde who implied that his troops were killing innocent civilians by sowing mines indiscriminately in Chechnya.

"If you are prepared to become the most radical Islamist and are prepared to get circumcised, I invite you to Moscow. We have specialists that deal with this problem," he told the reporter.

Mr Putin has repeatedly become tense and aggressive when asked about Chechnya.He famously vowed to wipe out all Chechen rebels after they had been "cornered in the shithouse".

Last month's hostage crisis in Moscow when 50 Chechen terrorists took over a theatre and were then gassed to death - along with 128 hostages - by Russian forces has added a menacing edge to Mr Putin's Chechnya responses.

But his reaction at the summit with European Union leaders in Brussels on Monday bordered on the baffling.

At a press conference after the summit, where EU leaders were rebuffed in their calls for a political solution in Chechnya, the Russian leader expounded on what he thought of the Chechen separatist fighters.

All Christians and all atheists, he declared, were imperilled by the Chechen Muslim fanatics. "If you decide to become a Muslim, even then you are not safe, because traditional Islam contradicts their [Chechen rebel] aims and conditions," he said.