From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
In May of this year, radical Chechen field commander Shamil Basaev warned Russia to expect a "summer of fire," thereby triggering fears of one or more major terrorist attacks comparable to the hostage takings at a Moscow theater in October 2002 and a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, in September 2004. Basaev claimed responsibility after the event for both those attacks.
But to date Basaev has failed to make good on that threat and, on 29 August, Interior Ministry commander Colonel General Nikolai Rogozhkin told a press conference in Moscow that between mid-June and mid-August his men succeeded in preventing an unspecified number of what he termed "large-scale" actions by the Chechen resistance fighters and killed or captured many others. In an 11 August commentary, the think tank Stratfor similarly cited Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) sources as saying that Russian security agencies have discovered a possible plot by Chechen militants to stage simultaneous terrorist attacks in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok.
The Chechen resistance has, however, claimed a major success in attacking the village of Roshni-Chu in mid-August. The Russian military commandant of Urus Martan Raion, southwest of Grozny, was killed in that operation during the night of 13 August together with four other Russian officers. One Chechen fighter of the reported 30 who participated in that operation was killed, according to chechenpress.org . Chechen acting President and resistance commander Abdul-Khalim Sadullaev subsequently praised the operation as a major tactical success. But it was reportedly veteran field commander and Vice President Doku Umarov, rather than Basaev, who planned the Roshni-Chu attack, and Basaev has not claimed credit for it.
On 22 August, pro-Moscow Chechen Interior Ministry spokesman Ruslan Atsaev claimed that Chechen police hunted down and killed the commander of the Roshni-Chu operation, who was identified as Ruslan Vakkhaev, emir of Urus Martan, lenta.ru and ITAR-TASS reported. One week later, on 29 August, Atsaev told ITAR-TASS that five participants in the attack have been killed and two captured. Among those killed, he named a second emir, Kazbek Batalov. He said the remaining members of Batalov's detachment have dispersed to their homes. Then, on 7 September, Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov announced that the entire detachment responsible for the Roshni-Chu attack has been "completely smashed" in a series of special operations, Interfax reported. He said more than 30 members were killed and a further six have been apprehended and are "providing testimony." |
(RIA Novosti) - A militant with links to al-Qaeda has been killed in Russia's southern republic of Ingushetia, an Interior Ministry official said on Tuesday. The body of a man with gunshot wounds, found at a militant base in western Ingushetia earlier on Tuesday, was identified as Jordanian-born Khalid Yusef Mohammad al-Elitat, who fought for the Islamist terrorist network in Russia's North Caucasus, distributing funds among militant groups active in Chechnya and neighboring Ingushetia.
Russian forces killed an alleged top associate to the Chechen rebel leader