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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Basayev ready to fight Russia for a decade |
| 2004-11-02 |
| Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for last month's Beslan school hostage-taking, warned Sunday that he was ready to fight Russia for a decade and insisted that civilians remain a fair target. But Basayev also said the rebels would observe "international law" if Russia also made such a commitment. The Chechens have accused the Russians of human rights violations and war crimes. "If [President Vladimir] Putin doesn't want peace, we'll wait until he leaves or if we can we'll send him directly to hell," Basayev said in an interview published on Chechenpress.com, a Chechen Web site. "Five years of war have gone quickly; another five or ten years will go just as fast." The interview dated from Oct. 14 featured Basayev's responses to e-mail questions posed by Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper to another Chechen Web site, the site said. There was no way to independently confirm the authenticity of the interview. "Our aim isn't to kill people, especially children, but to stop the genocide of the Chechen people and defend freedom and independence," Basayev reportedly wrote. "Therefore, we are forced to resort to extremes, which we are not ourselves happy with." Meanwhile, a car bomb exploded Sunday outside the Chechen capital's main hospital, injuring 17 people in an attack that apparently targeted members of a Chechen security force bringing their wounded for treatment after an earlier explosion, officials said. The first explosion struck a vehicle carrying the Chechen security troops on a highway in the outskirts of the capital, Grozny, Federal Security Service spokesman, Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, said on Russia's NTV television. Then, as the injured were being taken into Grozny's hospital No. 9, a second car exploded outside the building, he said. Thirteen of the wounded in the second attack were members of the Chechen presidential security service, headed by Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, said Maj. Igor Golubenko, a duty officer for the Chechnya Emergency Situations Ministry in Rostov-on-Don. The other victims were three hospital workers and a child. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |