From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/20/2007 6:32 PM
Kakiev: Pro-Moscow Chechens Have Been Sent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia

Nezavisimaya Gazeta on December 19 quoted Said-Magomed Kakiev, the former commander of the Zapad special-purpose battalion who is currently Chechnya's deputy military commissar, as confirming that servicemen from the Zapad Battalion and the Vostok Battalion—the other Chechen-manned special-purpose unit of the Russian Defense Ministry's 42nd Motorized Infantry Division—have been sent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The newspaper noted that reports of Chechen spetsnaz being among the Russian "peacekeeping" troops in South Ossetia and Abkhazia began to appear after the International Olympic Committee named Sochi as the site for the 2014 Winter Olympics, but that the Russian military had consistently denied the reports. Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted Kakiev as saying that "part of the 'Zapad' battalion is located in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict, part is undergoing training to carry out a peace-keeping mission [and] part is busy with operations in Chechnya." The newspaper also quoted the commander of the Vostok Battalion, Sulim Yamadaev, as saying that soldiers from that unit are operating in South Ossetia.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta quoted the former deputy commander of the group of Russian forces in the Transcaucasus, Lieutenant-General Yury Netkachev, as saying that Chechens were sent to Abkhazia "to neutralize possible military actions by Georgia aimed at disrupting the Olympics in Sochi." According to the newspaper, Kakiev indirectly confirmed this, claiming that forces from the Zapad Battalion are located in an area that might be the target of a strike by Georgian forces. "We are standing by," Kakiev said. "Chechens are not afraid of losses and are ready to die in carrying out the military mission." Kakiev claimed that Chechen servicemen were involved in a fierce clash between Russian "peacekeepers" and Georgian spetsnaz that took place in November.

However, a reserve colonel who participated in United Nations peacekeeping operations in Angola, Vyacheslav Patenko, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that according to international rules on peacekeeping operations, combat units—not to mention special forces—are not permitted to be involved in peacekeeping operations. He also said that Kakiev's information was greatly exaggerated. Likewise, Colonel Igor Konashenkov, an aide to the commander of the Russian military's land forces, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta: "Units of spetsnaz, including from the Chechen 'Zapad' battalion, are neither in Abkhazia nor South Ossetia." He did not rule out, however, that Chechen soldiers might be serving in Russian "peacekeeping" units.

On the other hand, Netkachev, who in 1998-2001 trained special forces units to guard Aslan Abashidze, who was then leader of the Georgian autonomous republic of Adzharia, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that he thought Kakiev's information about Chechen spetsnaz being in Abkahzia and South Ossetia was reliable even though Russia's foreign and defense ministries would never confirm it. He added that Chechen military units played a decisive role in defeating Georgian units in Abkhazia in 1993. "They have a colossal fighting spirit and experience," Netkachev said of the Chechen units. "And of course the General Staff should use this experience and spirit in regions where Russia has its geopolitical interests."

As Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted, the "Islamic Battalion" in Abkhazia in 1992-1993 was headed by Shamil Basaev, who was even named a deputy defense minister of Abkhazia. According to the newspaper, the Georgian Prosecutor General's Office ordered Basaev's arrest in 1996 for "actions aimed against Georgian statehood on the territory of the Abkhazian Autonomous Republic."

Briefs

- Chechen NGOs Under Pressure

Prague Watchdog reported on December 17 that during the past two weeks, the staffs of both the independent Chechen Society newspaper and the Union of Chechen NGOs (SNO) have been evicted from their offices located in the House of the Press building in downtown Grozny. The website reported that the reason given for the Chechen Society eviction was “incorrect” comments made by the paper’s editor, Timur Aliyev, on the recent Russian State Duma elections, and that the SNO office was closed down after the organization’s director, Taisa Isaeva, refused to wear a headscarf, as recently decreed by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. However, Prague Watchdog quoted a House of the Press official as saying in a private conversation with SNO staff that the government’s new press and information minister was not happy with material the organization had posted on its website about violations of human rights and freedoms in the republic. Several other NGOs plan to vacate the premises early next year, mainly because of a sharp rent increases. Meanwhile, Kavkazky Uzel reported that the Nazran-based Chechen Committee for National Salvation said in a statement posted on its website on December 14 that the Ingushetian authorities have accused it of violating legislation on registration and financial transparency.

- Ingushetia Residents Arrested in Connection with Bombings

RIA Novosti reported on December 20 that a court had sanctioned the December 18 arrest in Nazran of a resident of Ingushetia, Salanbek Dzakhiev, in connection with the bombing of the Nevsky Express passenger train in Novgorod Oblast on August 13. According to the news agency, two other suspects in the case, Amirkhan Khidreyev and Maksharip Khidreyev, were also detained in Nazran the same day. Ingushetiya.ru reported on December 18 that police from North Ossetia had detained two other suspects in the Nevsky Express bombing, Salambek Zagiyev and Bashir Kotiev, during a special operation in Ingushetia that day. Kotiev was subsequently released but Zagiev remained in police custody. Ingushetian security personnel prevented the North Ossetian police officers who arrested the two from leaving the republic, releasing the North Ossetian policemen only after Ingushetian President Murat Zyazikov ordered them to do so. Meanwhile, Interfax reported on December 17 that a resident of Ingushetia was detained in Kabardino-Balkaria on suspicion of detonating a bomb on a bus in Stavropol Krai earlier this month that killed two young women and injured 15 other passengers.

- Nine Dagestani Medical Students Reportedly Join Militants

According to an article published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting on December 13, Dagestan has been shocked by the case of nine medical students, some from well-off families, who apparently ran off to join militant Islamic fighters. The article's author, Remaz Alikhanov, who reported from Makhachkala, quoted Badrudin Shakhmuradov, acting chief of the Dagestani Interior Ministry's criminal investigations department, as saying: “Even today, fresh people are being attracted into the ranks of the bandits, whose average age is between 20 and 25. People of all ethnic groups, from all regions of the republic and from all income groups are going into the forests.” Shakhmuradov said the more radical recruits were young men who either could not or did not want to find a normal role in society, while others were “military romantics” —young men, often with a good education, who blamed their own problems on others. Alikhanov quoted a young Khasavyurt resident who sympathizes with the radicals as saying: “Sometimes a man disappears at night on the way to the mosque, and in the morning his body is discovered full of bullets in the mountains 300 kilometers away from Khasavyurt. Then his body is shown on the news with an automatic weapon next to it, ‘Wahhabi’ [fundamentalist Islamic] literature, and the map of a school, as though he was planning a terrorist act. The same thing happens in Chechnya and Ingushetia. The government is driving its own people into the forests. Not everyone wants to live in a police state.”