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Chechens seize more hostages Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow Wednesday December 17, 2003 The Guardian Chechen rebels continued their foray into the neighbouring Russian republic of Dagestan yesterday, embarrassing Moscow by seizing more hostages and another village before releasing all their captives and disappearing into the hills. Up to 120 fighters have been in Dagestan since Monday, when they ambushed border guards, killing eight young conscripts and an officer. Local officials said an attack helicopter had tracked down the rebels and killed eight of them. Moscow claims that the situation in Chechnya is returning to normal, but the latest raid is reminiscent of rebel operations in 1999 which prompted Moscow to invade the republic to restore order. Yesterday the rebels briefly seized the village of Galatli, where they took seven hostages, in addition to the four they took on Monday. The rebels were reported to be surrounded by local police, but they left at midnight, warning their 11 captives not to approach the authorities until daybreak. Russia's defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, said six rebels had been killed in the latest action. TEXT: Maria Tsvetkova Despite regular air raids on the mountain gorges of Dagestan, fugitive Chechen rebels continue to attack small border villages. They no are longer killing or taking hostages but are instead forcing local residents to give them cheese and bake bread for them. In the early hours of Thursday Chechen militants again made an appearance in the Tsunti district of Dagestan, where on Monday a group of militants stormed the village of Shauri. A border guard unit dispatched to the village from the Mokok frontier post was ambushed by the rebels on Monday morning. 9 border guards were killed in the clash. Reports of more groups of militants having been seen in the area were received by the crisis headquarters in charge of the anti-rebel operation in the republic on Thursday morning. Deputy head of the Tsunti district administration Nurula Abdul Kadyrov cited local residents as saying the bandits are moving around in small groups and continue to raid villages, though fortunately, without killing or taking anyone hostage. Apparently, the rebels have simply run out of rations, so they have been taking food from residents, mostly cheese and dried meat, and are forcing them to bake bread for them, before returning to the mountains. On Wednesday it was reported that the militants had been encircled by Russian forces in the mountains of Dagestan, ''as tightly as the mountain conditions permit,'' the deputy head of the press service of Dagestan's Interior Ministry, Anzhela Martirosova, told Interfax. ''The search for the militants is under way in three directions - Tsumadinsky, where the militants may try to break through to Chechnya; Bezhtinsky where action is being taken to prevent the militants from breaking through to Georgia, and Tlyaratinsky where action is being taken to prevent the possibility of the militants crossing into Azerbaijan,'' Martirosova said. The chief of staff of the North Caucasian Military District, Alexei Maslov told ITAR-TASS that 12 militants had been eliminated in the area over the past two days. At the same time, Dagestan's Interior Ministry said that it had not been possible to find even a single militant's body in the mountains so far. Yet, on Thursday morning a spokesman for the North Caucasus border department Sergei Livantsov told Interfax that border guards had found the bodies of four guerillas near the Dagestani village of Galatli. He said the rebels had apparently been killed by air strikes. ''The remains of the killed rebels and weapons and equipment found at the scene will be shown to the public,'' Livantsov said. The assumption that there were foreigners among the guerillas in Dagestan, has also been confirmed, particularly, ''by intercepted radio messages,'' Livantsov said. Major-General Sergey Solovyev, deputy commander of the North Caucasus regional border guard directorate of the Russian Federal Security Service, said on Wednesday evening that the rebels had arrived in the district a few days earlier. ''The rebel group had spent a few days near the village of Shauri before it was spotted last Monday. Their reconnaissance units monitored the terrain, spoke to local residents, and searched for guides who could help them cross into neighbouring Georgia through mountain passes,'' Solovyev told Interfax on Wednesday. ''We currently do not have complete information on this group. Locals who spoke to them said that there were Arabs, Dagestanis and Chechens among the rebels,'' he said. Solovyev said that it is not known whether they had been hiding in Chechnya or Dagestan, but their arrival in the republic was not accidental. ''Winter is approaching, and it is becoming more difficult to hide from federal forces in Chechnya. That is why separatist fighters are actively engaged in searching for places to spend the winter. They have managed to set up reliable winter bases in Georgia,'' he said. The Chechen section of the border with Georgia has been closely monitored over the past few months, thus prompting rebels to try to cross into Georgia from Dagestan. 18 Dec. 2003 13:47 Kommersant Dec.17, 2003
Alleged Moscow theater siege partecipant dies in car accisent... Khanpash Terkibaev, a Chechen journalist who some observers allege participated in the October 2002 seizure of a Moscow theater by Chechen fighters, was killed in a traffic accident near Grozny on 15 December, Interfax reported on 16 December. The agency quoted Grozny district administration head Shaid Dzhamaldaev as saying that four other people riding in the car with Terkibaev also died in the accident, the causes of which are under investigation. In April, "Novaya gazeta" correspondent Anna Politkovskaya reported that Terkibaev traveled to Moscow with the Chechen fighters who seized the theater and ensured that their journey was unimpeded, and that he left the theater before Russian commandos stormed it. Politkovskaya, who interviewed Terkibaev, claimed he had been sent on the raid by Russia's special services. Terkibaev, who was reportedly accredited with the government daily "Rossiiskaya gazeta," denied involvement in the theater raid. JB ...AS SOME SAID HE WAS AN EX-FSB AGENT AND PROVOCATEUR... Also in April, former FSB Colonel Aleksandr Litvinenko, who now lives in London and who has repeatedly charged that the FSB was involved in the 1999 apartment-building bombings that served as a pretext for the latest Russian military incursion into Chechnya, said he had given Liberal Russia co-Chairman Sergei Yushenkov information about Khanpash Terkibaev shortly before Yushenkov was shot dead in Moscow on 17 April (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 28 and 29 April 2003). Litvinenko described Terkibaev as a former FSB agent who specialized in penetrating Chechen rebel groups to organize provocations. Litvinenko also said that Terkibaev had worked in the press service of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and that in March, he accompanied Dmitrii Rogozin, then chairman of the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee, to a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Terkibaev claimed in his interview with Politkovskaya that he had been working closely with top Kremlin officials, including presidential spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembskii and deputy presidential administration head Vladislav Surkov, to arrange peace talks with Chechen groups. JB ...AND OTHERS SAY HE WAS A 'DOUBLE AGENT.' On 16 December, following news of Terkibaev's death, Politkovskaya told Ekho Moskvy, "It is a shame to speak ill of a dead person, but a person who betrays many different sides condemns himself." She said that after her interview with Terkibaev was published, "very many people, both from the Chechen side and from Russia's special services, said he wouldn't live much longer." "I was told that [radical Chechen field commander Shamil] Basaev had condemned him and that the [Russian] special services had condemned him," Politkovskaya said. "He was in Baku for a while, and people who were also there said things were not so good for him. As result, he wound up in Chechnya." Politkovskaya called Terkibaev "a kind of double agent." "Nevertheless," she added. "I deeply regret that this last witness was killed." JB
The death of Khanpash Terkibayev, a former administrator of Ichkerian President Aslan Maskhadov's TV channel, in a traffic accident was reported yesterday [16 December]. According to some news media, Mr Terkibayev supposedly was involved in the hostage crisis on Dubrovka. A spokesmen for the law enforcement agencies, however, denied these suspicions, as well as the rumours that the journalist had worked as a confidential informer for the special [security] services. Ruslan Atsayev, the head of the Chechen MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs] press office, told the Kommersant correspondent that Ichkeria's former TV reporter Terkibayev was involved in an accident when he was approaching the Cossack village of Goryacheistochnenskaya. Highway patrolmen determined that the VAZ- 2110, carrying Khanpash Terkibayev and two others, crashed when the driver lost control of the car. As a result, all three died. When Maskhadov was in charge, Mr Terkibayev worked in Chechen television and hosted the "Put Prezidenta" show. Although the journalist showed no sign of disloyalty to the president, on TV at any rate, Aslan Maskhadov issued an edict dismissing him from his state TV job just before the start of the second Chechen campaign. No one knows what the president of Ichkeria did not like about the TV reporter's work. According to one theory, the journalist was suspected of ties to the Russian special [security] services. In spite of that rift, Mr Terkibayev served as the president of Ichkeria's representative after the start of the hostilities and travelled to several Arab countries in that capacity. Later, however, as Ichkeria's Deputy Foreign Minister Usman Ferzauli told Kommersant, Mr Terkibayev lost his right to represent Aslan Maskhadov for "making defamatory remarks about Ichkerian officials." Mr Ferzauli did not specify the types of remarks the president's representative took the liberty of making: "He seemed to be a provocateur in general." Mr Terkibayev was also described as a provocateur after the events on Dubrovka. Some of the news media suggested that the Maskhadov's former TV journalist might have been involved in the organization of Movsar Barayev's raid. One newspaper, citing Mr Terkibayev's own comments, asserted that he had infiltrated the terrorist group for the special [security] services, had been in the concert hall when the hostages were taken and had left shortly before the building was stormed. Of course, Mr Terkibayev and the spokesmen for the special [security] services categorically denied those rumours. Deputy Chief Aleksandr Potapov of the Russian FSB [Federal Security Service] Directorate for Chechnya also denied the rumours when Kommersant interviewed him yesterday: "All of these are lies. Mr Terkibayev had nothing to do with the terrorist act on Dubrovka. Otherwise, he could not have kept driving around the republic without fear." According to Mr Potapov, law enforcement personnel had arrested Ichkeria's former TV journalist several times on suspicion of ties to the rebels, but they had to release him each time due to a lack of evidence: "He liked to pretend he had ties to influential people just to attract attention. He actually was just bluffing." Nevertheless, some people in Chechnya do not believe the TV journalist's death was an accident. One of Mr Terkibayev's friends, who asked to remain anonymous, told Kommersant: "That accident was a well-planned assassination. Terkibayev became a problem, so they got rid of him." Kavkaz-Center
Press Center of Chechen Committee for National Rescue reported thatDecember 8, 2003 in the village of Samashki, Achkhoi-Martan District ofChechen Republic of Ichkeria (CRI) another drama occurred, where a25-year-old local resident, Anzor Hasan(ovich) Algiyev (b. 1978), waskilled as a result. His father died before the war. And after Anzor died there are no morehealthy men left in the Algiyev family. About a year to year and a halfago Anzor’s younger brother was maimed by the collaborators. When heheard them scream and use profanities, he came out of the house and toldthem to stop. The national traitors opened fire and the young man losthis leg as a result. The eyewitnesses reported that this is how it happened with Anzor:during the day Russian invaders cordoned off a few blocks. Their maintarget was Kirov Street, where Anzor was living and who was at home atthat time. Anzor was armed: he had a few grenades and an AK assaultrifle on him. The eyewitnesses say that Anzor could have left unimpeded if he openedfire and shot some invaders point-blank. But since there were fellowvillagers out, he was afraid that any one of them might get hurt and didnot open fire. He was offered to surrender. Algiyev answered that they did not come here to leave him alive. He cameout of the house (where the women were) and got into a shed in thebackyard. This is when he was spotted and shot. He was seriously woundedand did not want to be captured alive. Anzor pulled the pin out a handgrenade. Anzor and one of the invaders died in the blast. Anzor Algiyev was held in high respect among the fellow villagers, andregardless of risking their own lives, a large number of people came topay their last respects. Anzor was buried in the village of Samashkiwith a Muslim ceremony. Anzor was a Resistance Fighter, and this is why their house was always atarget for so-called «cleansings». Besides, there is the Katsayev familyliving in the same block on the other side of the fence on KalininStreet. In May 2003 Russian invaders took away the girl name Elisa fromthat family. Kavkaz-Center News
The organization “Committee for antiwar actions” organized today apicket against the Chechen war on Pushkinskaya square in Moscow. Theparticipants held in their hands photographs of war victims, includingphotos of dead children. Their slogans included: “Russia, get out oftoilet!”, “Chechnya, forgive us,” “Citizen Putin, observe Constitution,”“Let all imperial dreams die.” [18.12.2003 20:08] The Chechen Times |