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Chechen rebels claim responsibility for suicide attacks Leading Chechen rebel commander Shamil Basayev says separatist guerrillas under his command carried out the two suicide attacks that killed 78 people in the breakaway Russian republic last week. "Our martyrs' two sabotage attacks are only a small part of the operations we have planned for this year,'" Basayev said. The announcement has been made in a statement issued under his nom de guerre, Abdallah Shamil Abu-Idris, on the rebel Kavkaz Centre web site. Basayev says his brigade "carried out two successful sabotage operations against the Russian occupiers and their stooges - the...

RUSSIA: Chechen Civil War May 20, 2003: In Chechnya, rebel made another attempt to kill Akhmad Kadyrov, the pro-Russian Chechen who runs Chechnya. The attempt failed, although a bodyguard was wounded. May 19, 2003: The Georgian Armed Forces are due to start their "Kakheti 2003" exercise in the volatile Pankisi gorge soon. The exercise was supposed to begin in early May, but was postponed due to lack of funds and "will eventually take place in the near future". The Georgians know they can't postpone the exercise much longer, since the snow is now thawing in the mountain passes and the...

It is a very strange fact that the bloodiest terror attack of the past two weeks is the one that has received the least attention. While 28 innocents were killed in the Casablanca bombing and 34 in Riyadh, and a total of 12 Israelis in the five most recent attacks in Israel, 60 were killed by a single truck bomb in Chechnya on May 12. The casualty toll may yet rise higher as the injured succumb to their wounds and post-Soviet medical care. What are we to think of the Chechen terror-bombers? The Russians are very clear about what they...

Combined Reports Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev said Monday that his men were responsible for last week's suicide bombings in Chechnya, while separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov distanced himself from the violence. The attacks last Monday and Wednesday killed at least 77 people, mostly civilians. "By the grace of Allah, mujahedin fighters from our suicide ... brigade carried out two successful operations against the Russian occupiers and their local lackeys," Basayev said in a statement published by the Kavkaz Tsentr rebel web site. Basayev said the attacks were "a tiny part" of a new campaign against what the Kremlin calls its "anti-terrorist...

May 18 2003 'Al-Qaeda reorganising in Pakistan, Chechnya' NEW YORK: The al-Qaeda terror network is reorganising, training new members and planning new attacks, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing counter-terrorism officials in Washington, Europe and the Middle East. One senior official told the daily that al-Qaeda now had an estimated 3,000 members - far fewer than in the 1990s, when some 20,000 people were believed to have trained at al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. But there has been a spike in recruitment since the US invaded Iraq in March, the report said. And the network is reorganising into "smaller,...

Moslem terrorists driving a truck loaded with explosive into a government building in Chechnya killed 37 people, and injured 300. As I looked in my local paper yesterday, I was surprised that the news about the Moslem terrorists attack on the same day in Russia, and our media failed to report the connection. Ben Laden agents are working in Chechnya, and their timing of car bombs in Saudi Arabia, and Russia is important news. How is it that we are focusing ONLY on the bombing in Saudi Arabia, and ignoring the bombing in Russia? Is it possible that our media...

The Russian foreign ministry linked a series of suicide attacks in Saudi Arabia and Chechnya, as a top Russian official accused al-Qaeda of being behind the deadly blast in the breakaway republic. "The blasts in Saudi Arabia, in Chechnya and other places - these are links in the same chain," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement. "This leaves no doubt that the problem of terrorism in all its forms has not only not disappeared, but that it calls for the further mobilisation and concentration of the powers of all countries to fight against this evil," he...

Last Updated: Monday, 12 May, 2003, 14:54 GMT 15:54 UK Many killed in Chechen blast A suicide attack on local government buildings in Chechnya has killed at least 37 people and injured 197, local officials say. A lorry loaded with explosives was driven at a compound containing the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the northern town of Znamenskoye, sources in the pro-Moscow administration said. The blast left a crater at least 15 metres (yards) wide and four deep, gutting buildings at the scene and causing other serious damage within a radius of up to 500 metres. Russian...

A truck bomb ripped through a government compound in northern Chechnya on Monday, killing at least 30 people, the regional administration chief said.Sultan Ahmetkhanov, the head of the Nadterechny region where the blast occurred, said a truck filled with explosives had damaged part of an administration building and the headquarters of the Federal Security Service in the town of Znamenskoye, as well as about eight residential houses.At least 30 people were killed and two to three times that number were injured, Akhmetkhanov said. The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing Chechen administration officials, said more than 20 of the injured had...

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia - A young boy wounded by a truck bomb blast in Chechnya died on Saturday, bringing the death toll to 60. Meanwhile, a Russian diplomat called bombings in the war-ravaged region and in Saudi Arabia and Morocco "links in one chain" of attacks by international terrorists. The 10-year-old boy died of a brain injury he suffered when suicide attackers detonated a truck filled with explosives at the edge of a Moscow-backed government compound in northern Chechnya on Monday, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing Chechnya's Health Minister Shakhid Akhmadov. The Interfax news agency said the boy was...

Chechnya truck blast kills 30 At least 30 people were killed and dozens injured today when a truck packed with explosives blew up in a government compound in northern Chechnya. Sultan Ahmetkhanov, the top official in the Nadterechny region where the attack took place, said the suspected rebel attack damaged part of an administrative building and the HQ of the federal security service in the town of Znamenskoye, as well as about eight homes. At least 30 people died and two to three times that number were injured in the blast, he said. The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing Chechen administration...