Posted on 09/20/2001 9:32:38 AM PDT by Pericles
Thursday September 20 5:40 AM ET
Violence Flares in Chechnya After Rebel Attacks
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Fresh violence flared up across Russia's volatile North Caucasus on Thursday as troops and police strove to find and kill rebels responsible for attacks on major Chechen towns.
Itar-Tass news agency quoted the military as saying it had launched large-scale ``special operations'' in every part of Chechnya and used helicopter gunships to blast rebel positions in the mountains. At least six servicemen have been killed.
The raids followed Monday's rebel assault on Gudermes, during which chunks of Chechnya's second town fell into guerrilla hands, and an attack on another major town, Argun. Troops had to use armor and artillery to flush out the attackers.
Tass quoted local police as saying the situation in both towns remained ``difficult but controllable.'' The rebel kavkaz.org web site said clashes there continued.
The daily Kommersant said that in Argun troops had blown up a disused three-story public building to stop rebels holed up inside firing on them. It said some 20-30 guerrillas were buried under the rubble when the building collapsed.
The upsurge in violence, which pro-Moscow administrator Akhmad Kadyrov has linked to U.S. kamikaze attacks, has further dented the credibility of Moscow's public relations campaign portraying life in the region as slowly returning to normal.
In the worst attack of the day, four Russian troops were killed and five wounded when their armored vehicle came under fire at the border with the neighboring region of Ingushetia, Interfax news agency quoted Ingushi police as saying.
RIA news agency reported two deaths among Russian policemen, slain in overnight attacks on checkpoints. It said another six had been wounded.
In a bitter blow to Moscow's attempts to recruit more Chechens for administrative positions, the rebels killed district police head and close ally of Kadyrov, Salman Abuyev, along with his six bodyguards, news agencies said.
The rebels reported fighting in the capital Grozny where their Web site said six Russians had been killed. Tass said six rebels had been killed when they tried to overrun a checkpoint in the city where severe travel restrictions remain in force.
Tass said several rebel groups had been destroyed by rocket fire from helicopter gunships in the southern Chechen mountains which remain largely beyond Moscow's control.
Russian commandos on a mission in the mountains encircled and wiped out five guerrillas, Tass said, adding that another four rebels had been killed there on Wednesday.
Almost two years after sending troops to regain control of Chechnya, Moscow has failed to stamp out armed insurgency. Its servicemen die almost daily from rebel attacks.
September 19, 2001; Georgia has agreed to extradite Chechen rebels imprisoned in Georgia. There are several hundred Chechens detained, usually for illegally coming across the border from Chechnya. Russia has claimed that the Chechens are working with Osama Bin Laden, and there is considerable evidence to back this up. Georgia does not want to be accused of supporting Bin Laden.
Double score for Russia!
Would you go so far as to say there may be a big ol' quid-pro-quo in the works?
Sixty years later, it's Osama instead of Adolf.
There are those who can't be helped. People so sick and twisted they believe the American people are to blame for their problems. We've got a whole world of whiney victims. visit the website and post your observations!
the operative words being FIND and KILL.
At least the initial message.
I tried making a post to that site in the Talking Points, but it kept on saying that the server could not be located.
And rightly so. That's probably the best thing they can do for us right now - anyone think those groups aren't interrelated? It used to be if they cracked down in one country the bastards would go to another. The hard part was getting everyone to crack down at once. ObL found a way to do that, the schmuck.
Do you know that the terrorist web site kavkaz.org is hosted in the US and is registered in the name of the Chechen "minister of propaganda" Movladi Udugov? Do "whois kavkaz.org" for further info. Does the US shelter known Chechen terrorists and/or their sympathizers and henchmen? Haven't heard anything about "good" terrorists from Bush yet.
Are we supposed to be fooled into believing that Bush is serious when he is condemning terrorism universally?
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