My guess is that if the Ruskies catch these guys that their treatment will make our prisoner "abuses" look like a day at the beach.
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CHERMEN, Russia (AP) -
Thousands of federal troops streamed into a southern Russian republic on Tuesday in pursuit of suspected Chechen rebels who attacked police and government buildings in coordinated assaults that officials said killed at least 57 people.
Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to the republic of Ingushetia late Tuesday to meet with its president Murat Zyazkikov, where he praised Ingush soldiers and police for putting up fierce resistance to the attackers.
The dead included 47 law-enforcement officers or officials, the ITAR-Tass news agency cited Beslan Khamkoyev, acting interior minister of the republic of Ingushetia as saying.
The United Nations office of humanitarian aid coordination in Russia said a UN worker, Magomed Getagazov, was among the dead, caught in a crossfire while returning home from work in Nazran, the main city of Ingushetia.
The militants' foray into Ingushetia underscored the Russian military's failure to defeat separatists in neighboring Chechnya after five years of fighting, and raised new fears that violence could spread to other parts of southern Russia.
Putin, in remarks shown on Russian television, told Zyazikov that the search for the attackers must go on "as long as necessary." He thanked those who fought off the attackers and "did not allow the bandits to achieve their goals."
The raid came amid preparations for an August election in Chechnya to replace Kremlin-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, killed last month in a bomb attack. Kadyrov's death was seen as a significant blow to Putin's efforts to bring some stability to warring Chechnya.
Shortly before midnight Monday, about 100 fighters armed with grenade- and rocket-launchers seized the Interior Ministry in Nazran and attacked border guard posts there and in two villages near the border with Chechnya, Karabulak and Yandare, regional emergency officials said.
Russian authorities sent in reinforcements shortly after dawn Tuesday. The troops moved into Nazran through the border village of Chermen in neighboring North Ossetia, in a long column of armored personnel carriers and army trucks. But by midmorning most of the militants had already fled into the thick forests on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya, authorities said. Zyazikov told Interfax news agency that a large number of weapons and ammunition were also missing from police depots.
Russian news media reported only two militant deaths. An Associated Press reporter also saw the body of one militant near Yandare. At least one group of rebels were caught by police as they retreated through Galashki, near the Chechen border, said Yakhya Khadziyev, spokesman for Ingushetia's Interior Ministry.
Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the Russian forces in Chechnya, blamed Chechen rebels for planning the attacks, but said the raids were carried out by fighters recruited from both Chechnya and Ingushetia, the Interfax-Military News Agency reported.
"The attacks were clearly saber rattling, aimed to demonstrate the rebels' effectiveness to attract funding from foreign terrorist networks," he was quoted as saying.
Earlier, officials noted how some of the fighters were shouting "Allahu akhbar" - a frequent rallying cry of Chechnya's separatist rebels as their insurgency increasingly comes under the influence of radical Islam.
Khadziyev had earlier said the deaths included at least 18 police officers and 28 civilians. Some of the 47 law-enforcement deaths mentioned by Khamkoyev could have been counted as civilians.
Russian television broadcast footage of smoke-charred buildings and burned out vehicles. Smoke was still pouring from at least one of the brick buildings.
Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told Putin that 15 officers from the Ingush Interior Ministry's central building defended the structure for nearly six hours in a bid to keep rebels from entering the jail cells and freeing captives, the Interfax news agency reported.
Shamil Basayev, one of the most audacious rebel commanders, was likely behind the highly-coordinated attack, Chechnya's Interior Minister Alu Alkhanov, the Kremlin-supported candidate in Chechnya's upcoming presidential elections, told ITAR-Tass.
Chechnya's separatist president Aslan Maskhadov had also warned recently that insurgents were preparing to undertake new offensives.
"Before, we concentrated our efforts on acts of sabotage, but soon we are planing to start active military actions," Maskhadov was quoted as saying in an interview excerpted on Radio Liberty.
A three-man crew from Russia's NTV television came upon some of the presumed attackers. One of the masked men, carrying an automatic weapon, identified the group as "the Martyr's Brigade," said correspondent Maxim Berezin and the man added, "We have shot everyone here. Go and announce that."
Acting Ingush Interior Minister Abukar Kostoyev, the health minister and a deputy interior minister were killed in the fighting, officials said. ITAR-Tass said Nazran city prosecutor Mukharbek Buzurtanov and Nazran district prosecutor Bilan Oziyev had died, as well.
"Wherever we were, there were armed people, some in uniform, some not, and you didn't know whose side they were on," said a firefighter in Nazran who identified himself only as Aslan.
Police at the Chermen checkpoint said that a 10-vehicle Russian military convoy had been ambushed en route to Nazran, about three kilometers (1.5 miles) away. Three vehicles were later seen returning to Vladikavkaz, the North Ossetian capital, carrying casualties.
Although Chechnya is a largely Muslim region in overwhelmingly Christian Russia, the first of Chechnya's two wars was an essentially secular conflict. However, after Russian troops pulled out when Chechen rebels fought them to a standstill, the separatists increasingly took on a specifically Islamic mantle.
The last major incursion into Ingushetia was in October 2002, when a band of fighters attacked Russian forces near Galashki, killing 17 servicemen.