Russian Forces Complete Anti-Terror Plan

AllHeadlineNews ^ | 1/16/05 | ARSEN MOLLAYEV

[TexKat]

MAKHACHKALA, Russia - Russian commandos battled terror suspects in the southern Dagestan region allegedly planning another attack like last fall's seizure of a Beslan school, and security authorities Sunday declared the insurgents dead after a tank razed their suspected hideout. One commando also was killed.

But a search through the debris after Saturday's shootout found the body of just one militant, officials said. The bodies of the other militants could have been destroyed by fire, they said.

Nikolai Gryaznov, head of the Federal Security Service's branch in Dagestan, said the militants had prepared "something similar to what happened in Beslan," the city in southern Russia where more than 330 people died in a school hostage-taking in September.

The clash began early Saturday when police in the Caspian Sea region of Dagestan, east of Chechnya, tracked down five terror suspects and cornered them in a house on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Makhachkala.

Hundreds of security forces backed by armored vehicles and a helicopter gunship tried to storm the house for more than 15 hours, but the militants fended off the attacks. The federal authorities finally sent a tank to destroy what remained of the house and declared all the militants dead.

Two members of an elite anti-terror commando unit known as Alpha were wounded, and one of them died later in a hospital.

In a separate clash Saturday, police stormed another house in Dagestan's port of Kaspiisk to arrest a separate group of militants. The gunmen shot and killed three police officers, while one suspect was killed, another was captured and a third escaped.

Officials said both groups of militants operated under Rasul Makasharipov, who led a 1999 raid on Dagestan by Chechnya-based militants. The invasion triggered the second war in Chechnya, now in its sixth year.

Kaspiisk was the site of a bomb explosion during a Victory Day military parade in May 2002 that killed 43 people, including 12 children. Russian authorities blamed adherents of the conservative Wahhabi strain of Islam, whom they accused of trying to instill fear in the regional police and political leadership and fuel instability in the region.

[Andy from Beaverton]

Russian authorities blamed adherents of the conservative Wahhabi strain of Islam, whom they accused of trying to instill fear in the regional police and political leadership and fuel instability in the region.
No, they're trying to create a separate Islamofacist country.

[garyhope]

And the plan is,......Kill em all, Allah can sort em out later.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

[TexKat]

Special forces on Saturday besieging a house in Makhachkala, where five terror suspects were holed up. All were later killed.

Police officers search through the debris of a house, where several gunmen had holed up, in Makhachkala, Dagestan, Sunday Jan. 16, 2005. A fierce gun battle with a group of terror suspects in the southern province of Dagestan ended when a tank razed the house where they were holed up, and security authorities declared all the militants dead. A search through the debris after the Saturday gun battle did not immediately turn up the bodies of the five militants suspected of plotting an attack like September's Beslan school seizure, security authorities said. (AP Photo/NewsTeam, Magomed Khazamov)

[winker]

AH!; just what was needed "A SELF MAKEOVER" designed to fool no one!

[nw_arizona_granny]

Note the photos, it says they killed the 5 terrorists,
but cannot find the bodies.