| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus |
| Chechens ’seize second village’ |
| 2003-12-16 |
| EFL: Chechen fighters are reported to have taken at least eight hostages, a day after seizing at least four captives. The rebels attacked the village of Galatli in the Russian republic of Dagestan overnight, officials say. Viktor Tsitsvera, a local security official, told the Russian news agency Itar-Tass the village had been surrounded by border guards and police. Unlike Saudi, when the Russians surround you, you don’t get away. Of course, the villagers are also at risk. Military analysts have suggested the fighters got lost in the mountains while en route to - or from - Georgia. "I knew we should have taken a left turn in Albuquerque" Some reports suggest there are now as many as three bands of fighters in the area - perhaps because one large original group split up. One Russian news agency quoted a freed hostage as saying they included Arab fighters as well as Chechens and Avars - another local ethnic group. The Arabs would be the fearless leaders, they’ll leave the Chechens and Avars to fight a holding action while they beat feet. A state of emergency has been declared in the Tsuntinsky district of the remote, mountainous republic, which fighters crossed into on Monday. They took at least four hostages in the village of Shauri after a gunfight at the frontier which left nine Russian border guards dead, local authorities said. Security forces have blocked roads into the village from Dagestan, Chechnya and neighbouring Georgia. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #2 Dammit, dammit, dammit: Chechen rebels who fought their way into the neighboring Dagestan region and occupied a village released all their hostages and fled, avoiding capture, Russian authorities said Tuesday. Dagestani police officials initially said that most of the dozens of rebels who entered Dagestan from Chechnya after ambushing a border post were surrounded in the tiny village of Galatli. But Dagestani Interior Ministry spokeswoman Anzhela Martirosova later said the gunmen left the village sometime before dawn, leaving behind their 11 hostages - seven from Galatli and four they had seized in another village, Shauri. Before leaving Galatli, the rebels told their hostages not to emerge from the village and approach security forces until after daybreak, a duty officer at the ministry said. The old "Stick your head out and we'll pop you" routine. Must have been a piss poor job of surrounding the village. |
| Posted by: Steve 2003-12-16 9:26:11 AM |
| #1 wouldn't it be appropriate for the Russians to do hovel-to-hovel searches and execute any Arabs they find? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-12-16 9:16:37 AM |