Caucasus Times
30 July 2003

Special operation keeps going in Groznyy


Over a week Russian servicemen and Chechen police have been conducting a large scale special counter-terror operation in the Chechen capital.

'Targeted sweep raids', total searches of private homes and passport checks are carried out on a daily bases. The police and army remain watchful while sweeping desolated and ruined houses and buildings.

"Actually, the militants make their munitions caches in such places," told Alikhan, a special task policeman. "In the daytime they are just ordinary citizens, at nights they come out, well equipped for ambushes, assaulting Russian forces and Chechen policemen.

The military commandant's headquarters officers said the large scale sweeps in Groznyy have given first positive results. "Since we had started the operation, just over a week, we achieved some good results," reported an officer of commandant's headquarters. "The number of militant attacks on our check points and bombing reduced considerably in Groznyy. We have detained dozens of active members of militants groups and a lot of munitions confiscated."

According to him the civilians were not troubled. "At that we neither isolated districts of the city, nor conducted total identity checks etc. We locate our targets and carry out spot checks," the officer claimed.

On the contrary, the locals maintain the military and police sometimes unreasonably detaining people were very rude and abusive. "Yesterday, they stopped me five times and checked my passport," told Ramzan Akhtayev, a resident of Octiyabrsky district of the Chechen capital. "I had to turn my pockets out, explained them I had live here since 1982 and at the moment was going to my work and didn't know where those bandits were. I had a close call when they were about to pull me in but thanks be to God, everything was good."

As the locals considered the activity to be directly linked with rumors circulating in the city of militants allegedly plotting to capture Groznyy. "My kin is an employee of the Interior Ministry so he said intelligence picked up sings that some hundreds of militants had already infiltrated Groznyy to start their operations," said Movlady Usamov, 38. "That's why the militaries and the police elevated threat level
measures."

The Interior Ministry of Chechnya didn't give any comments, but claimed the situation was controlled and the large-scale operation was intended as a counter-terrorist measure.

Ruslan Adayev, Chechnya Caucasus Times

http://www.caucasustimes.com/conflict/en/CHe-300703.asp