|
Chechen "Black
Widows" claim responsibility for Yessentuki http://www.kavkaz.org.uk/russ/article.php?id=15265 Riyadus Salikhin takes responsibility for actions in Yessentuki and Moscow 23 December: The Shari'ah news agency has disseminated a statement by the amir of the Islamic brigade of shakhids [martyrs], Abdallakh Shamil Abu-Idris [Basayev], which says that the latest actions [blasts] in Yessentuki [on 5 December] and Moscow [on 9 December] were conducted by shakhids from this brigade. The Shari'ah news agency emailed the text of the statement on behalf of Shamil Abu- Idris from Chechnya to the Kavkaz-Tsentr news agency: In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to God, the master of worlds, who created us as Muslims and bestowed jihad on His righteous path. Peace and prosperity be to Prophet Muhammad, his family and disciples till the Day of Judgment. By God's blessing, the brigade of martyrs Riyadus Salikhin [Black Widows] carried out two successful operations in Yessentuki and Moscow within the previously announced operation Boomerang to force the Russians to declare peace. These were planned combat operations to counter Russian aggression, which were conducted by fighters of our brigade and were not linked to any holidays or other anniversaries. I am specially stressing that our goal was not to terrify someone. Our goal was to physically eliminate those involved in the genocide of the Chechen people in places from where subunits have been sent which commit atrocities in Chechnya. That was why for launching fresh strikes we chose the Pyatigorsk area where, as everyone knows, there is the notorious Belaya Lebed remand facility where hundreds of Chechen hostages are being held. They are being subjected to inhuman tortures and execution. Many hostages disappear without any trace. We do not accept accusations that students died as a result of the action. Young people are also dying here, in our motherland, but their numbers are incomparably high and the overwhelming majority of them are absolutely innocent. In addition, Russian citizens actively support the killing of the Chechen people, both financially (by conscientiously paying taxes to their criminal regime) and politically. The latest elections to the State Duma, which were held under the slogan of eliminating Chechnya and the Chechens, prove this. The operation in Yessentuki was carried out by our brother martyr, inshallah, from the Stavropol division of the Riyadus Salikhin brigade of martyrs. The target of our sister martyr in Moscow was the State Duma. However, our martyrs have the right to make decisions independently if there are problems with carrying out the major task. Something might have prevented her from going the remaining 50 metres to the target. Nevertheless, we believe that both operations were successful. To paraphrase Russian generals, we say - we bombed Russia, we are bombing Russia and we will bomb Russia wherever we consider it necessary and whenever we consider it necessary. May God help us on His righteous path! God is great!
Dec. 24, 2003 Russia's most wanted man, Chechen guerrilla commander Shamil Basayev, said on a rebel website that he had masterminded two deadly suicide attacks which separatists had earlier condemned. Sergei Yastrzhembsky, top aide to President Vladimir Putin, said on Wednesday authorities had no firm proof Basayev was behind the attacks which killed 46 people in southern Russia and six in central Moscow. But he believed it might be true. "Those were pre-planned combat operations to oppose the Russian aggression, carried out by our Brigade's fighters," Basayev said in a statement posted late on Tuesday on the kavkazcenter website. On December 5, two days before Russia's parliamentary election, a bomb ripped through a packed commuter train near the town of Yessentuki, northwest of Chechnya, killing 46 passengers, mostly students on their way to class. Two days after Putin's allies scored a big election win, a woman suicide bomber killed herself and five others outside the National Hotel, not far from the Kremlin. Russian officials pointed a finger at Chechen separatists. But they denied responsibility and condemned "all terror acts and acts of violence...directed against the civilian population" in a statement posted on the same website. Basayev said in his message he saw any Russian national as a legitimate target and vowed to pursue such attacks. "We reject all accusations regarding students who died as a result of our action. Immeasurably more young people die here, in our motherland, and the vast majority are absolutely innocent," Basayev's statement said. Yastrzhembsky told a news conference: "We do not have 100 percent proof of this information (on Basayev's involvement), but it is one of the main lines of the inquiry." Basayev won prominence in Chechnya by staging surprise attacks on Russian troops during Moscow's first 1994-96 campaign to subdue rebels in the region. He was then briefly prime minister during Chechnya's three years of de facto independence. After Putin sent troops back into Chechnya in 1999, Basayev retreated to the mountains, along with elected Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov. Maskhadov, seen as a moderate, distanced himself from Basayev after Chechen separatists seized a Moscow theatre last year and 129 people died when security forces used a noxious gas in an attempt to rescue hundreds of hostages. Russian officials say Basayev's guerrillas are the best-trained and organised in Chechnya and put up most of the fight against Moscow's forces, estimated to number 60,000. //Reuters//
Ekho Moskvy: 24
December 2003 The current ruling regime is destroying the foundations of a new Russia that have been laid over the last 15 years, Ivan Rybkin, a leading Yeltsin-era figure, said on 24 December. Speaking in an Ekho Moskvy radio interview , Rybkin - who was secretary of the Russian Security Council in the late 1990s under Boris Yeltsin - said he would run in the March 2004 Russian presidential election. "I am going to run in the election because I cannot put up with what is happening in the country. I am going to run in the election because I have different views on life and on Russia's destiny. I am going to run in the election because I do not agree with the actions of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and his team who are destroying the foundations of the new Russia that - with so much effort - were created and developed over the last 15 years," he said. "The Federation Council - as a chamber and an institution for agreeing Russia's key political and economic interests - has been squashed. The Russian State Duma has been humiliated. It no longer expresses the people's aspirations and, what is even more important, the people's will. The independence of the courts is no more. As we speak, courts are turning into an appendage to the executive branch of power. Independent mass media have been destroyed. These are the main reasons why I an running for president." Speaking about Russia's policy toward Chechnya, Rybkin said: "I think that this second edition of the Chechen campaign, which has been especially fierce since August 1999, is bringing bitter fruit for Russia. The methods that are being used in Chechnya - sweeping operations, generally speaking - have been transplanted to the rest of Russia. For where else can the skills acquired by our security structures there be applied?. There are also some classified statistics, which have become classified with the appointment of Boris Vyacheslavovich Gryzlov to the Interior Ministry. Those statistics are very bitter indeed. The point is that an absolute majority of the most serious crimes, including murders, are committed by those who have been through the horrible school of Chechnya. "This is what I would like to talk about with the voters," Rybkin said. Earlier on 24 December, an action group backed by exiled tycoon Boris Berezovskiy and by the Liberal Russia movement, said it would nominate Rybkin for the 14 March poll. Christmas is aid worker's 500th day in captivity MOSCOW, (Reuters) - Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres called on Thursday for the release of kidnapped Dutch aid worker Arjan Erkel as he spent his 500th day in captivity in Russia's war-racked Caucasus mountains. MSF says it believes Erkel -- who was seized at gunpoint in broad daylight in Makhachkala, the capital of the Dagestan region, in August 2002 -- is alive and has repeatedly criticised Dagestan and federal authorities for dragging their feet. "Five hundred days in detention without knowing what will happen the next day, without being sure that he will leave prison alive one day is an unimaginable ordeal," said Thomas Nierle, MSF Switzerland's Operations Director, in a statement. "We call again upon all parties of good will to release Arjan now." Erkel, in his thirties, was in charge of MSF activities in the North Caucasus and was mainly responsible for helping people who had fled the vicious separatist war in Chechnya, where rebels have fought Moscow for nine years. Kidnapping is rife in the Caucasus -- particularly in the devastated region of Chechnya. Only last week a group of villagers was seized for several hours by militants but Erkel is the last westerner to remain in captivity. No ransom or political demands have ever been made for his release. MSF said earlier this year that more than 50 humanitarian aid workers had been kidnapped in the Caucasus region since 1994, 10 of them since 1999.
23/12/2003 Raid on temporary accommodation center of forced migrants in Grozny - details In the evening of December 8, 2003 in the Leninsky district of Grozny, officers of one of the Chechen security agencies made an armed attack on the temporary accommodation center of forced migrants which is located 47, Kirov street. At about 7 p.m., three UAZ and several VAZ-21099 cars stopped by the center. A large group of security agents in masks left the cars and came up the entrance of the building. The attackers disarmed the guards and beat them. Then the security agents spread in the center, beating everyone they met without making difference who it was: a man, a woman or a child. Here are some examples: Ahmed Saluyev, 40 years old. Threatening him with arms, security agents laid him on the floor and beat him because he tried to help a 60-year-old woman who had fainted in fright. Said-Magomed Chibilyaev, about 60 years old. He was struck in his shoulder by a machine-gun butt because he had refused to lie down on the floor. Khava Takayeva, 22 years old. Security agents gave her a slap in the face because she had heard noise and come out of the room. Then they pushed her with a machine-gun and made her come back into her room. Imany Visaitova, 12 years old. When strangers in masks came, she was in the corridor of the second floor. She wanted to run into her room but one man gave her a slap in the face and pushed her into her side with a machine-gun so strong that she hit on the wall. The girl was in shock for a long time. After awhile, the woman from the center's administration who was in charge of tenants' registration heard the noise and came. Attackers commanded her rudely to lie down on the floor, but she refused to do it. Looking straight in the eyes of the men who had given her the order, she said, "You are Chechen, I see it in your eyes." After that the security agents ordered her to go into the room more politely, in Chechen. Then without concealing any more that they were Chechens, the security agents started leaving the building. None of the tenants was arrested. The attackers gave the gun back to the guards and ordered them to stay where they were until they left. Official authorities of Chechnya have not reacted to the incident in the temporary accommodation center. As the victims say, no representative of the law-enforcement agencies, television or presidential administration has come to them. This incident has been simply covered up. Tenants of the center wrote two claims: to President Kadyrov and to the leader of the United Russia party in Chechnya, Klintsevich, asking to protect them from security agencies' high-handedness. But they have received no answer yet. It should be pointed out that this was not the first armed attack on this temporary accommodation center. Source: Representative Office of the Human Rights Center "Memorial" (Nazran, Ingushetia)
|