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46 killed in attacks on Russia government
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-22 16:53
Thousands of Russian troops streamed into a southern
Russian city Tuesday in pursuit of suspected Chechen rebels who launched a
series of brazen attacks and killed at least 46 people, three of them
high-ranking regional officials.
Damaged building of Ingushetia police
headquarters in Nazran early Tuesday, June 22, 2004, in this image taken
from television. Heavily-armed militants launched near-simultaneous
overnight attacks against police headquarters, border guard stations and
other government offices in Ingushetia, a Russian region bordering warring
Chechnya, officials said Tuesday. The Interfax news agency reported that
more than 46 people, including 28 civilians, were killed. [AP
Photo] |
The overnight attacks in the province of Ingushetia raised new fears that
violence could spread to other parts of southern Russia.
The fighters seized the Interior Ministry in Nazran, the largest city in
Ingushetia, and attacked border guard posts there and in two villages near the
border with Chechnya shortly before midnight Monday, regional emergency
officials said.
By late Tuesday morning, thousands of Russian soldiers and anti-terrorism
troops were moving into Nazran and most of the fighters had retreated. Some of
the fighters seized Nazran residents' cars to make their getaway, residents
said.
Col. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the Russian forces in Chechnya, blamed
Chechen rebels for planning the attacks, but said the raids — carried out by
about 100 militants armed with grenades and rocket launchers — involved fighters
from both Chechnya and Ingushetia, the Interfax-Military News Agency reported.
Officials said some of the fighters were shouting "Allahu akhbar" — a
rallying cry of Chechnya's separatist rebels as their insurgency increasingly
comes under the influence of radical Islam.
Chechnya's Interior Minister Alu Alkhanov, the Kremlin-supported candidate in
Chechnya's upcoming elections, told the ITAR-Tass news agency that he believes
Chechen rebel commander Shamil Basayev, who has been blamed for some of the most
audacious attacks, was behind the foray into Ingushetia.
Yakhya Khadziyev, spokesman for Ingushetia's Interior Ministry, said the 46
dead included 18 police officers and 28 civilians. He said that a military field
hospital was set up in Nazran, a possible indication of more casualties.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin takes part in a wreathlaying ceremony, in Moscow Tuesday,
June 22, 2004 on the anniversary of 1941 Nazi invasion. Heavily-armed
militants launched near-simultaneous overnight attacks against police
headquarters, border guard stations and other government offices in
Ingushetia. [AP Photo] | A firefighter who would reveal only his first name, Aslan, said he had seen
more than 10 corpses on the streets of the city.
"Wherever we were, there were armed people, some in uniform, some not, and
you didn't know whose side they were on," Aslan said.
Ingush police estimated that up to 100 militants, armed with grenade and
rocket-launchers, were involved in the assaults. The attacks sent the sounds of
gunfire booming across Nazran and other settlements for most of the night.
"There are a lot of casualties, both from the law enforcement side and among
civilians," the Interfax news agency quoted Ingush President Murat Zyazikov as
saying.
Thousands of Russian anti-terrorist special forces officers and servicemen
headed into Nazran, through the border village of Chermen in neighboring North
Ossetia, in a long column of armored personnel carriers and army trucks shortly
after dawn Tuesday. Inside the city, firefighters fought blazes at the Interior
Ministry and its weapons storehouse, as residents cowered in their homes.
Fighting from the nearly 5-year-old Chechen war — the second war in a decade
— has occasionally spilled into Ingushetia, highlighting the Russian military's
ineffectiveness against the rebels.
The last major incursion was in October 2002, when a band of fighters
attacked Russian forces well inside the republic near the village of Galashki,
killing 17 servicemen.
In an interview excerpted on Radio Liberty last week, Chechnya's separatist
president Aslan Maskhadov said that rebels were preparing to undertake new
offensives.
"We are planning to change tactics. Before, we concentrated our efforts on
acts of sabotage, but soon we are planing to start active military actions," he
said.
A three-man crew from Russia's NTV television came upon some of the presumed
attackers, wearing masks and speaking accented Russian, at a border crossing as
the crew tried to enter Nazran from North Ossetia.
"Out of the dark, a voice says 'Stop, put your hands on the hood,' said NTV
correspondent Maxim Berezin. "A man carrying an automatic weapon came up. 'Who
are you?' 'We're from NTV.' He took a few steps back, as if to shoot us.
"Then he said, 'Say that we are the Martyrs Brigade,' I don't remember of
whom, Abu, Alyua, I don't remember what he said. 'We have shot everyone here. Go
and announce that.'"
Berezin saw the bodies of at least six men in camouflage — the uniform of
security service members — lying outside a minivan. Nearby stood a police car,
its windows shot out.
There was heavy fighting in Karabulak, where the militants attacked a border
guard and customs post and a police station, and the assailants seized a police
checkpoint in the village of Yandare, Ingush emergency officials said.
Acting Ingush Interior Minister Abukar Kostoyev was wounded in the first
minutes of the fighting in Nazran and was taken to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia,
where he died, the Ingush Interior Ministry official said.
Ingush emergency officials said that the health minister and a deputy
interior minister of Ingushetia had also been killed in the fighting in Nazran,
while ITAR-Tass said Nazran city prosecutor Mukharbek Buzurtanov and Nazran
district prosecutor Bilan Oziyev had died as well.
Police at the Chermen checkpoint on the North Ossetian border said that a
10-vehicle Russian military convoy had been ambushed en route to Nazran, about 1
1/2 miles away. Three vehicles from the column were later seen returning to
Vladikavkaz, the North Ossetian capital, carrying an unknown number of
casualties.
As dawn broke Tuesday, there was still sporadic shooting in Nazran and
Karabulak, but the fighters were stealing away. Alleged militants stole some
Nazran residents' cars to make a getaway, and people were hiding in their
houses, said a resident who identified himself only by his first name, Aslanbek.
The attacks in Ingushetia came as Russian and Moscow-backed Chechen officials
prepared for an August election to replace Kremlin-backed Chechen President
Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed in a bomb attack last month. The Kremlin has put
forward its candidate, Chechen Interior Minister Alu Alkhanov.
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