Russian Successes Hunting Chechen Mujihadeen Leaders (The Russian Front against Terrorisim)

October 3, 2001; Hunting Mujihadeen Leaders- After two years of fighting in the Caucasian mountains of Chechnya, Russian special operations groups have had some notable successes hunting mujihadeen leaders. Federal police and the military commandant's office were conducting a special operation in the village of Starye Atagi (south of Grozny) on 30 September. The Russians came under fire from mujihadeen concealed in a well-camouflaged cache arranged in a Starye Atagi street. There were casualties among the Federal troops, while three mujihadeen were killed and one wounded.

One of those dead was later identified as Abu Yakub, alleged chief of intelligence for Khattab and responsible for distributing money to mujihadeen groups. Khattab is a Jordanian mujihadeen and one of the principal field commanders waging the war in Chechnya against the Russians. Yakub's groups have also acted in direct support of Khattab's, the last time in late June 2001 when one of Khattab's units was trapped 7km south-west from Sharoy. Yakub dispatched a 40-man breakthrough group with small arms, mortars and automatic grenade launchers to help Daud Akhmad's blocked group, but they failed three times to establish communication.

One of Abu Yakub's lieutenants is Musa Sadayev (Sedayev), leader of a 30-man group who the Federals consider one of the most-active cells operating in Grozny. Sadayev's fighters recruited Grozny residents for training in mountainous camps. About 20 residents of the Grozny's Katayama suburb left for training in the first half of September.

A cache of weapons was also discovered, including a home-made mortar with combat load, two grenade-launchers, seven Kalashnikov assault rifles with clips, two underbarrel GP-25 grenade-launcher rounds, 18 hand grenades, three artillery shells (typically used for making Command Detonated Mines) and 400 rifle cartridges. - Adam Geibel

October 2, 2001; Russian negotiators have been discussing a peace deal with moderate factions among Chechen rebels. Pro-Russian Chechens have long maintained that this is the way to go, for the hard core rebels can only be dealt with by force.

October 1, 2001; A new Russian tactic in Chechnya is to seize civilians suspected of rebel activity and demand a weapon from the captive's family before releasing the man. While this may not get weapons away from the rebels, the families are forced to buy a weapon held by some other civilian and removing one more weapon from the civilian population. Meanwhile, the Defense Ministry announced that over a hundred criminal investigations have been launched against Russian soldiers in Chechnya this year. Already, 52 of those investigations have been completed, resulting in 43 Russian soldiers going to trial on serious charges.

Amazing, isn't it?? Just two months ago, if this was reported, there would have been an outcry in America, condemning those 'hateful' Russians for attacking the 'peace-loving' people of Chechnya. Maybe people will wake up and smell the coffee now. Better late than never.

Why yes! It is amazing! The followng article is from the New York Times from exactly two months ago as posted on FreeRepublic:

Russian Mothers Are Saving Their Sons in Chechnya

And this is what I wrote back then as related to your comment and this current article's topic.

Russian Mothers Are Saving Their Sons in Chechnya

#16 Posted on 07/08/2001 11:34:44 PDT by Pericles

What a bravura propaganda article by the New York Times. I especially like how the Russians are shown to be such savages on the poor Chechens. Once that picture of the Russians is painted then she can write about how bad the Chechens are. But of you read she is attacking just one group of Chechens, the Wahabists, and praising the other group of Chechens the one led by that 40 year old Chechen scholar. See the New York Times in a clever sleight of hand is throwing its support for the more moderate, anti-Wahabist elements.

Since the Caucuses are linked to the oil routes that will go through Turkey, and Turkey's alliance with Israel is of great importance, the NYT's is clearly attacking the Islamic Wahabists while praising the more moderate "traditional" Chechen rebels.

So to sum up. The NYT's is telling us; Russia is bad, the Chechen Islamic Wahabists are bad. The West should back the more secular "traditional" Chechens. If they control Chechnya, the pipeline would be secure and they would cause Israeli-Turkish relations any grief.

And then I wrote this:

#51 Posted on 07/13/2001 21:24:19 PDT by Pericles

I think IMHO, the "Chechens" did not think that the Russians would react the way they did when they went into Dagestan. I am sure they thought the least the Russians would do was move back from the border or retake what the Chechens took and that's it.

The Chechens were just as shocked as the Americans when the Russians kept on rolling the tanks up to and past Grozny.

Evidence of this were reports of no resistance to the Russian advance until Grozny and the lack of any Chechen heavy weapons to ward off the Russians (especially AA).

If the Russians planted those apartment bombs as a pretext to retake Chechnya it would have also served as a message to the Chechens and (some) Americans that the Russians were bloody serious this time.

With the "constitutional coup" initiated by the Russian FSB and military General staff we had Yeltsin eased out and Putin moved in.

The FSB is now calling the shots in Chechnya which explains the Russian hunter-killer units going after Chechen leaders and not the Chechen fighters per say.

It is also interesting to note that this head hunter tactic began after Putin and Bush had their summit.

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