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| Caucasus |
| Chechens Successfully Withdraw From Ingushetia |
| 2002-09-30 |
| After splitting into small groups, Chechen In Soviet days, Chechen-Ingush was an autonomous region. When the Soviet Union split up, the two went their separate ways, since the Ingush aren't for the most part lunatics... Maierbek Vashagaiev, spokesman for Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, said he was in contact Sunday afternoon with Ruslan Gelaev, the commander of the troops fighting the Russians at Galashki. Gelayev said three Chechen detachments returned to base in the mountains above Ashkhoy-Martan. He said 13 Chechens had been killed and wounded and about 50 Russian soldiers died. Russian officials, for their part, claimed they killed 117 activists from a force of up to 300 that entered Ingushetia via the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Russia admitted to losing 17 soldiers. The tolls have not been independently verified. It's doubtful they will be... Russian armed forces continued Sunday their search for Chechen groups and cut off their escape routes into Chechnya, Interfax news agency said. Chechen fighters withdrawing from Galachki attempted to contact Saudi Arabia by cellular phone, an unnamed Russian military source told Interfax. "Hello, Mom? It's Mahmoud! You'll never guess where I am..." Russia describes its three-year war in Muslim Chechnya as an "anti-terrorist" campaign to suppress an Islamic insurgency backed by Arab countries. It regularly claims to have uncovered evidence of contacts between the Chechens and Islamic backers. Probably because the Bad Guys don't make much effort to conceal them... A federal spokesman said surviving rebel groups were attempting to reach Bamut in southwestern Chechnya and that two had been killed Friday outside the village of Nesterovskaya. Russian missiles and artillery pounded a forest near the village of Bamut overnight, ITAR-TASS quoted Ingush officials as saying. Ummm... Generically hitting a forest usually doesn't do much good, not even with Russian artillery tactics... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |