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Rebels strike near Chechnya, 48 dead
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-22 22:12
Suspected Chechen rebels rampaged through a southern Russian region in
attacks early on Tuesday that killed 48 people and raised new doubts about
Moscow's ability to stamp out Chechnya's separatist violence.
Russian soldiers
conduct a search operation in the mountains of Chechnya . Armed clashes
erupted overnight Tuesday near Russia's separatist republic of Chechnya as
rebels stormed police targets in neighboring Ingushetia in brazen attacks
that left dozens of people wounded and dead.
[AFP] |
In a brazen operation, the rebels
seized the interior ministry building in Ingushetia region and held it for
several hours, raided police arms depots and reduced police headquarters and a
building housing border guards to gutted wrecks.
The large-scale offensive was the biggest armed operation by rebels in
Ingushetia since war between separatists and Moscow erupted in neighboring
Chechnya a decade ago.
The coordinated strikes, concentrated in the regional capital Nazran, led to
fierce overnight battles involving grenade-launchers and automatic weapons as
security forces fought to dislodge the rebels from the ministry building.
Coming just six weeks after the assassination of Chechen leader Akhmad
Kadyrov, the daring operation dealt a further blow to President Vladimir Putin's
assertion that the tide had turned in Moscow's favor in its nine-year battle
with the separatists.
There was no immediate word from the Kremlin. Itar-Tass news agency said
Ingushi President Murat Zyazikov kept Putin informed on the situation by
telephone.
A TV frame grab
shows a masked soldier as he stands in position during raids in the
Dagestani capital Makhachkala, June 22, 2004. Special forces in
Ingushetia's Federal Security Service (FSB) successfully stormed a
building in Makhachkala that was taken over by Chechen militants on Monday
night. [Reuters] |
Tass quoted police as
saying a small army of up to 200 guerrilla fighters staged the operation that
began with rebels tricking their way into checkpoints on one of the main
highways.
Using false documents that identified them as members of anti-crime and
special service squads, they commandeered the checkpoints and then gunned down
police who turned out to answer the alarm, police said, quoted by Tass.
Forty-eight people -- 18 police, five regional justice officials and 25
civilians -- were killed, Yakhya Khadziyev, a spokesman for the regional
interior ministry, was quoted as saying by Tass.
He said the dead included the acting regional interior minister Abukar
Kostoyev, who had been in the building when it was captured. Another 60 people
were injured. Two rebel fighters had been killed.
Footage shown by ORT Channel One television showed bodies of combatants and
civilians lying in the streets Tuesday, many of them charred and mutilated from
the intense fighting.
Witnesses said they had seen the bodies of many police officers in the
ministry building which the rebels held for several hours before pulling out in
the early hours.
A police officer who gave his name only as Timur said: "In our section alone,
30 people were killed and wounded."
Chechnya's interior minister, Alu Alkhanov, who has won the Kremlin's
blessing to run for the region's presidency, said he had evidence that rebel
warlord Shamil Basayev masterminded the attack. Basayev, Russia's most wanted
man, has been behind many sensational rebel attacks over the past 10 years.
SPILLOVER
Ingushetia's mainly Muslim people are ethnically close to the Chechens and
have occasionally suffered the spillover from the secessionist war in Chechnya,
which borders it to the east.
But they were stunned by the intensity of the overnight violence.
Police headquarters and a border guards building in Nazran were reduced to
burned-out shells and several other buildings badly damaged. Police prevented
anyone entering the interior ministry building itself.
On the streets of Nazran Tuesday people wandered in a daze, some with
improvised bandages on their heads and limbs. With local emergency services at
full stretch, the defense ministry dispatched a military field hospital to the
area.
Regional authorities declared three days of mourning.
A local correspondent said people were already preparing the burials of their
dead by sunset, according to Muslim tradition.
The rebels, who launched their offensive at around 10.40 p.m. (1840 GMT)
Monday night, also staged attacks on other points in the region, including
Karbulak and Sleptsovsk.
Within an hour and a half they had seized the interior ministry building in
Nazran. They then raided interior ministry depots, seizing weapons and
destroying those they could not take with them.
Police reinforcements and Russian troops based in the south rushed to the
region to shore up the beleaguered local forces.
Witnesses said the rebel attack, launched by militants wearing masks and
green headbands, came out of the blue.
A local youth who stumbled across some of the militants before the attack was
told: "We have come to stay. We are already in authority here."
Residents cowered in cellars as fierce fighting raged around them for several
hours until it died out at about four a.m., when the rebel fighters left the
interior ministry building and pulled out.
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