Russia Invaded by Chechen & Wahhabist Terrorists

Russian warplanes and artillery blasted a village in Ingushetia where Chechen rebels battled federal troops in the worst fighting seen in the Russian republic bordering Chechnya for two years.

The fierce clashes which erupted before dawn drove hundreds of civilians to flee Galashki, in a mountainous border area some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Chechnya, and caused many casualties, including at least one civilian.

The body of a British man aged around 30 was found among the dead rebels in the village, the Russian presidency announced Thursday.

The Chechen guerrillas, who according to Moscow had crossed from Georgia into Ingushetia, shot down a Russian Mi-24 military helicopter near Galashki, killing its two crew members.

Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev told AFP in a telephone interview that he was conducting the "operation" against Russian forces.

He did not say if he was at the scene but rebel sources said that Gelayev's lieutenant, Abdul Malik, was commanding the attack.

By midday, the Russian army said it had ""pushed back" the rebels from Galashki and had cornered them in a farm outside the village, ITAR-TASS reported. The Chechen separatists numbered between 150 and 300 according to different Russian sources.

The Russian military said that the rebels included Wahhabists, followers of radical Islam, and a number of Arabs were among the dead.

According to the 58th Russian army command, up to 70 rebels were killed and at least five fighters were taken prisoner.

The North Caucasus military headquarters said that Russian forces had been pounding rebel positions with artillery to prevent them from escaping in the direction of Chechnya, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.

Among the dead rebels, Russian soldiers found the body of a Briton born in 1973, who had a Georgian visa in his passport, the Kremlin said, giving his name as Scott Roderick John.

According to the presidency, Russian troops found a videocamera, several cassettes, a satellite phone and a notebook with writings in English, near his body.

From some five kilometres (three miles) outside the village, an AFP correspondent saw a plane identified by local residents as a Sukhoi SU-25 fly towards Galashki, heard the bombing and then saw smoke rising from the scene.

One inhabitant of Galashki, Mariam Agapranova, was killed by gun shots, according to witnesses who were not able to give further details. An ambulance evacuated two wounded civilian men.

Reinforcements were rushed to the village, with military jeeps and armoured personnel carriers driving towards Galashki carrying Russian special forces, said the AFP correspondent, who was at a military checkpoint outside.

Residents fled in dozens of trucks and cars from the village of 6,000 inhabitants including 1,500 Chechen refugees.

A fleeing Chechen refugee, and who gave his name only as Aslan, said that in the village "there are shots everywhere, but the rebels had already left."

According to a woman who left the village, the fighting broke out on Sunday. "Around four o'clock in the morning, the shooting became more intense and we were told to leave," she said.

Home to 140,000 refugees from the brutal three-year war in Chechnya, Ingushetia has been largely sheltered from the fighting.

The last major clashes took place in May 2000 in the same mountainous area when Chechen fighters killed 18 government soldiers.

Gelayev, well-known already from the first 1994-96 Chechen war, has been previously based in Georgia's Pankisi Gorge neighbouring Chechnya and is said to have crossed the border from Georgia into Chechnya around the middle of September.

Looks like the Russians know how to deal with Islamic terrorists.

Which is probably the reason the terrorists have decided to start attacking us instead.

Crisis in Chechnya: special report

Amelia Gentleman in Moscow
Wednesday February 23, 2000
The Guardian

A human rights organisation claimed yesterday that Russian troops summarily executed at least 62 people earlier this month in the worst massacre of civilians to date in the Chechen war.

Survivors have described how around 100 soldiers systematically robbed and shot civilians on the southern outskirts of Chechnya's capital, Grozny, in a two-day rampage which began on February 5.

Troops - most of them said to have been mercenaries - are alleged to have raped civilians, thrown grenades into basements where people were hiding, and executed anyone who tried to resist the looting. Many of the troops are thought to have been drunk.

On February 9, soldiers returned to the district of Aldi and threatened to punish any survivor who spoke of the massacre, according to researchers from Human Rights Watch who reconstructed the episode from the testimony of refugees who fled Grozny.

Russia's spokesman on the conflict was not available for comment last night, but officials have consistently denied that troops have taken part in atrocities against civilians.

"This is the single worst massacre of civilians that we have documented so far," said Malcolm Hawkes, a Human Rights Watch representative in Moscow.

Researchers have compiled a list of 62 names of people - mainly elderly men and women - they believe were killed during the attack, but say the final figure could be as high as 82. This is the second major allegation of large-scale brutality by the advancing Russian army to have emerged in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch focused on another part of Grozny, the Staropromyslovski district, where they claimed as many as 41 civilians had been killed by Russian soldiers in the space of several weeks.

"It is particularly galling to learn that while the Russians were denying that the killings in the Staropromyslovski region took place, an even worse massacre was occurring," Mr Hawkes said.

The Aldi attack took place as Russia seized the besieged Chechen capital, after a brutal bombing campaign which continued for several days after Chechen guerrillas abandoned their hold over the area.

One Aldi survivor told the New York Times of the time when the bombing stopped: "The troops started mopping up. We thought they would just check everyone's passports, but it was a cleansing of everything alive. They killed cattle, dogs, people - children and old people."

As soldiers swept through the streets demanding money and valuables, Akhmed Abulkhonov, 75, from Mesayev Street, tried to fend them off with a payment of 300 roubles (£6.50), according to one survivor interviewed by Human Rights Watch. The soldiers rejected this as a derisory payment, so he went back to his home and returned with $100.

"You have dollars and you only wanted to give us roubles," the woman quoted a soldier as saying. She said the troops then beat Mr Abulkhonov, shot him, set his cattle shed alight, and finally roped his daughter Lucia to an armoured personnel carrier and drove off with her.

Neighbours later buried Mr Abulkhonov in a front yard, along with other local victims of the massacre.

With access to Grozny severely restricted, there was no way of independently verifying the figures or the testimony of the refugees interviewed in camps in the neighbouring region of Ingushetia.

In an attempt to respond to escalating claims of severe human rights abuses in Chechnya, the acting president, Vladimir Putin, last week appointed a senior official, Vladimir Kalamanov, to look into the allegations of atrocities.

Mr Kalamanov yesterday promised to mount a thorough investigation into all recent claims, adding: "If the authorities abused their position, they must be punished."

But he stressed that he would not only be seeking to protect Chechnya's civilians. "We must also protect the rights of soldiers and officials. I can't refuse my protection to the representatives of the federal authorities."

There was some scepticism about what he would achieve. "At this date we are still unaware of any concrete measures that the Russian authorities have taken to prevent such abuses happening, or to bring the perpetrators of these war crimes to justice," Mr Hawkes said.

Russian officials preferred yesterday to focus on their own claims that Chechen guerrillas were planning terrorist attacks throughout Russia today to mark the 56th anniversary of the start of the mass deportation of Chechens under Stalin, who accused the entire nation of collaborating with the Germans.

Thousands died when about 650,000 Chechens were deported to central Asia and Siberia in rail cattle cars. The date is observed in Chechnya as a day of mourning. Rebel spokesmen have denied that Chechen fighters have any intention of marking the anniversary with attacks.

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