Chechnya Weekly
September 15, 2005 - Volume VI, Issue 33

IN THIS ISSUE:
* Shepel and Beslan Mothers Exchange Accusations
* Kolesnikov Raps North Ossetian Officials
* Sadulaev Explains His Relations With Basaev
* General Lists Successes But Grenades Hit the Interior Ministry
* Gunmen Also Busy in Dagestan
* Bombs Set Off in Ingushetia
* Briefs
* From Chechnya to Dagestan: Basaev's Second Front Against Russia
By Andrei Smirnov
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SHEPEL AND BESLAN MOTHERS EXCHANGE ACCUSATIONS

Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel on September 13 accused residents of Beslan who testified at the trial of Nurpashi Kulaev, the sole living Beslan hostage-taker to be put on trial, of lying. Shepel, a member of the team of prosecutors headed by Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov that President Vladimir Putin ordered to re-investigate the September 2004 tragedy, told Itar-Tass that in the re-investigation process, "a new pattern is observed—some of the witnesses are giving evidence based not on their own observations, but on the basis of the publications of certain respected national and regional media, [and] rumors." Shepel said that as part of the criminal probe into Beslan, investigators have checked all media items containing information about the hostage seizure and that a number of journalists have given them "invaluable assistance." On the other hand, there have been publications based "on rumors, unchecked information and fantasies of the authors themselves," he said, citing specifically the claim—made by eyewitnesses and reported in various media—that more than 32 hostage-takers were involved in the Beslan raid.

Besides raising doubts about the official estimate of the number of hostage-takers, former hostages have stated during testimony at the Kulaev trial that the first explosion in the school, which triggered other blasts and the bloody assault by security forces, came from outside, and that the security forces fired on the school with heavy weapons, including tanks and flame-throwers.

Members of the Beslan Mothers' Committee denounced Shepel's comments. The group's head, Susanna Dudieva, told Ekho Moskvy radio that it was "frivolous" and "irresponsible" for Shepel to "agitate" the people in this way. "Our children were killed by this frivolousness and irresponsibility," she said. "We will not allow things to continue in this direction. We will raise the question of Shepel's removal." Another member of the committee, Ella Kesaeva, told Kavkazky Uzel: "We no longer believe anybody—neither the president nor Shepel nor Kolesnikov…. The whole town was at the school a year ago, and now the whole town is being accused of bearing false witness…. It turns out, that the president deceived our representatives, promising on September 2 to look into everything." Kesaeva added that "we can no longer remain silent. We understand we cannot do much—for example, we are now preparing a written appeal demanding Nikolai Shepel's resignation. We understand that the authorities will not punish themselves….But it is impossible to remain silent, it is impossible to tolerate such an insolent lie; the entire world community must know what is going on here, how justice is being replaced."

The Beslan Mothers' Committee was also harshly critical of comments made by Nikolai Shepel on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, when he claimed that the evidence shows that the Beslan raid was the work of international terrorists. According to Itar-Tass, Shepel said that this evidence includes a videocassette showing a recorded "instruction session" held for a group called the "Jamaat Caliphate," which, he claimed, carried out the attack on Beslan's School No. 1. The Beslan attack, he said, was coordinated by Abu Zeit, the Arab warlord reportedly killed in February of this year, and Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basaev. Shepel also claimed that investigators have testimony from rebel gunmen who say that the late rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov personally briefed the group that carried out the Beslan raid.

Responding to Shepel's claim that Beslan was an act of international terrorism, Ella Kesaeva told Ekho Moskvy on September 11 that "the prosecutor, like us, knows the ethnic composition of the gang" that carried out the Beslan raid—an apparent reference to the fact that the hostage takers were mainly Ingush, along with several Chechens. "That statement speaks once again to the fact that the official investigation in every way possible is strenuously covering up those crimes that were committed in Beslan's School No. 1 during the storming, when children were burned up by Shmel [incendiary rocket grenades] and shot by tanks and flamethrowers. No one is responsible for international terrorism." Kesaeva also said that Shepel's comments showed that President Putin's September 2 meeting with the Beslan Mothers' Committee representatives, in which he promised there would be an objective investigation, had "yielded no results whatever."

KOLESNIKOV RAPS NORTH OSSETIAN OFFICIALS

Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Kolesnikov, meanwhile, accused North Ossetian President Taymuraz Mamsurov and the head of the republic's parliamentary commission investigating the Beslan tragedy, Stanislav Kesaev, of being unwilling to cooperate with federal investigators. During a September 7 press conference in Vladikavkaz, Kolesnikov claimed that Mamsurov—whose children were among the Beslan hostages and who was part of the delegation that met with Putin on September 2—had been summoned for questioning but that neither he nor "a number of other high-ranking officials" had yet been questioned, Itar-Tass reported. "I cannot explain this behavior," Kolesnikov said. "One is getting the impression that somebody is not interested in learning the truth." He also claimed that Kesaev had refused to answer investigators' questions in November 2004 and would be summoned for questioning a second time. "He refuses to answer the investigators' questions and name his information sources," Kolesnikov said of Kesaev. "The setting up of a republican parliamentary commission is not an end in itself." Kesaev, it should be noted, has publicly questioned various aspects of the official version of the Beslan hostage seizure (see Chechnya Weekly, September 7, June 30).

Kommersant on September 8 quoted Kesaev as insisting that he was not refusing to cooperate with federal investigators. "We will certainly talk with the Kolesnikov group because this cooperation suits interests of society—but not until we have found a form of work acceptable for all the sides," he told the newspaper. "Article 15 of the law on general principles for organizing state power in the Russian Federation subjects says that a deputy is allowed not to disclose information he obtained as a result his official activity. Therefore, I do not wish to cooperate with General Prosecutor's Office representatives as a witness, but am ready to provide the information." A spokeswoman for Mamsurov said he had received a letter from the Prosecutor General's Office inviting him for an interrogation on September 7 at any time of his convenience. "Taymuraz Mamsurov is interested in an objective investigation," the spokeswoman said. "He came back from Moscow specially for a meeting with the deputy general prosecutor. His airplane landed at [2 PM local time] but Mamsurov did not make it to the prosecutor's office—Vladimir Kolesnikov had already issued his statement by that time."

Mamsurov submitted to five hours of questioning by Prosecutor General's Office investigators on September 9. In an interview with Izvestia published on September 12, he said: "Since the tragedy I have been invited to Moscow just once to attend the Torshin commission [the Russian parliamentary commission investigating Beslan headed by Federation Council vice speaker Aleksandr Torshin]. I gave all my evidence there. Since then no one has been interested in my opinion, including the Prosecutor General's Office."

On September 9, North Ossetia's legislature sent a letter to Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov demanding that Kolesnikov apologize for the remarks he made about the local authorities' inability to solve the Beslan hostage case, RIA Novosti reported. The parliamentary deputies also said that Deputy Prosecutor General Nikolai Shepel had insultingly reprimanded Kesaev and his republican investigative commission. "We are seeking an unbiased investigation into the causes and circumstances of the terrorist attack…and to determine the fault of officials, irrespective of their positions and previous services to the country," the letter stated. "However, we believe groundless pressure is unacceptable and goes beyond Russian senior officials' authority."

Kesaev went in for questioning by the Vladikavkaz prosecutor's office on September 12, Interfax reported. "The questioning proceeded normally," Kesaev told journalists afterwards. "It met all procedural norms and I said everything I wanted to say. I have always said that I am not refusing to cooperate with the Prosecutor General's Office. I was invited as a witness in, what is most important, that major criminal case [the overall Beslan criminal case], not the Kulaev case. I refused to give testimony in Kulaev's case. I found it possible to provide the commission with numerous materials. I hope it will help the Prosecutor General's Office establish the truth."

The columnist Yulia Latynina suggested in her Moscow Times column published on September 14 that in attacking the North Ossetian authorities, the federal authorities are trying to drive a wedge between them and the Beslan Mothers' Committee and pressure them to shut the mothers up. "It looks like the Kremlin is now playing off two sides against each other in a simple game," Latynina wrote. "The new investigators [Kolesnikov, Shepel et al] will be very loyal to the Beslan mothers. At the same time, they will put as much pressure as possible on Mamsurov and his people to get the mothers to shut up. They will drive a wedge between the Beslan mothers and the North Ossetian government."

Meanwhile, Vadim Rechkalov wrote in Moskovsky komsomolets on September 14 that following the storming of Beslan's School No. 1 on September 3, 2004, he had managed to talk to an Emergency Situations Ministry (MChS) staffer who had been on the scene. The exchange of fire that led to the assault on the school by security forces began, Rechkalov recalled, when four MChS staffers went into the school to retrieve the bodies of hostages who had been killed when the terrorists first seized the school. Rechkalov quoted the MChS staffer as having told him: "We drove up in a truck, open the doors, opened the sides, showed that they were empty, carried the body of one [hostage taker] onto the steps—they themselves were afraid to take it from an open spot. And then a doctor went with them around the corner, and we remained standing at the fence with our arms in the air. And then shooting started. There was no explosion preceding it. After someone opened fire, the [hostage takers] began to shoot at us. If no one had started shooting, everything would have been okay. We had an understanding with the [hostage takers]. We were absolutely sure we would return." The MChS staffer told Rechkalov that going to retrieve the bodies "was simply a set-up"—that is, that the security forces used the MChS staffers' mission to collect bodies as a diversionary tactic for initiating a shootout and then an assault on the school. Two of the MChS staffers were killed in the shooting.

SADULAEV EXPLAINS HIS RELATIONS WITH BASAEV

Chechen rebel leader Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev gave an interview to Gazeta Wyborcza that the Polish newspaper published on September 9. The separatist Kavkazcenter website published a Russian translation of that interview on September 13.

Among other things, Sadulaev was asked whether the rebels' war is a "liberation" struggle or a "jihad," given that they are now led by a religious figure—meaning Sadulaev himself. He replied that it is a "defensive jihad," meaning a "defense of the homeland from an invasion by an external enemy, the liberation of our motherland from occupiers and the establishment of genuine freedom on our land." He added that the Chechen war could be described both as a "jihad" and a "liberation war."

Noting that Aslan Maskhadov had constantly offered to sit down for negotiations with the Russian authorities, the interviewer asked Sadulaev whether he would do the same. Sadulaev responded that Maskhadov indeed "offered the path of peace, although he also saw that the enemy constantly rejected his peace initiatives." Sadulaev added: "The paths to peace that Maskhadov offered, we also adhere to, and I am of that opinion. But there is one ‘but:' I am not a supporter of constantly offering peace. Because the Russians will not be inclined toward peace as long as they don't have a need for it. And I am not prepared to offer peace to the Russians all the time for no particular reason, in order to play up to them. I repeat once again that we are not planning to turn away from the path of peace that Aslan offered; we have not changed our opinion on that account. We simply are not prepared to appeal to Russia for peace all the time. We have already let the Russians know that peace is possible here at any time, and that this peace depends upon them. But I do not intend to ask them for this any more."

Sadulaev was asked about his relations with Shamil Basaev. It should be noted that Sadulaev issued a decree last month naming his cabinet, in which he named himself as prime minister and Basaev as first deputy prime minister. Basaev was given responsibility for the "power" agencies, including the National Security Service, the Anti-terrorist Center and the Interior Ministry.

Sadulaev told Gazeta Wyborcza that he "always had and always will have friendly, good relations with Shamil Basaev," but added that there is one issue about which they have disagreed going back to the period before Maskhadov's death. "It is that Shamil does not rule out taking hostages when conducting special operations or sabotage actions. Official Dzhokhar (former Grozny) does not accept such methods of conducting war. The ChRI [Chechen Republic of Ichkeria] leadership does not see any benefit in that and thinks that it does not contribute to the attainment of peace." At the same time, Sadulaev argued, given that "the leadership of Russia, beginning with its president, has turned hostage-taking into official state policy" in the North Caucasus and given the overall "cruelty of our historical enemy…no one can forbid (Shamil Basaev) from manifesting a corresponding reciprocal reaction—neither the President of Chechnya nor the Emir of the GKO [State Defense Committee]—Madzhlisul Shura. The only thing that can be undertaken here is to have a personal principled assessment. But as chief and subordinate, as mujahid to mujahid, we have good mutual relations. On the remaining matters he fulfills all the duties he is entrusted with, and rather successfully…. When Shamil wants to answer the Russians in kind, we don't find a way to punish him, we don't see in the Sharia any prohibition, so as to stop him. We can only advise Shamil: ‘We don't think that anything good will come out of what you are doing; please, don't do it.'" Sadulaev also quoted a verse from the Koran stating that aggression can be met with aggression.

Asked whether Basaev's actions damage the reputation of the Chechen resistance, Sadulaev answered: "One cannot react to the activity of Shamil unambiguously. Shamil Basaev is the head of the top committee in the GKO-Madzhlisul Shura—the Military Committee. He coordinates with the commanders of the fronts and sectors the missions to strike blows against the occupiers and national-traitors. And we are very happy with those operations, and also the activity of Shamil and his emirs. It does not demolish the image of the Chechens. And we only differ in our opinions concerning the taking of hostages; the ChRI leadership does not approve of that."

On August 30, following Basaev's elevation to the post first deputy foreign minister in the separatist government, Agence France-Presse quoted Ousman Fersauli, the Chechen rebel official living in exile in Denmark who is the new separatist government's foreign minister, as telling the Danish daily Politiken that the international community "should be happy that Basaev has been included in the government, since this means we have him under control." Within the new government, Basaev "is just a soldier who must obey," he said. "And if he doesn't he will be arrested, and I am convinced that he will not commit other terrorist acts." Fersauli said he was opposed to terrorist acts like the ones Basaev has claimed responsibility for, but that serving in the same government as Basaev did not compromise his convictions. "No, this will not change our stance," he said. "Basaev will not get involved in foreign policy. It will be up to me and Akhmed Zakaev to take responsibility for that." Zakaev, who is exile in London, was named culture minister in the new separatist government. Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, meanwhile, said he deemed it "unacceptable" that Basaev had been included in the Chechen rebel government.

Meanwhile, Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov told Interfax on September 14 that Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev's deputy, Shamil-Khadzhi Muskiev, had been killed along with four other rebels in a battle with law enforcement officers in the city of Argun. Kadyrov claimed that Muskiev was "the main ideologue of the illegal armed formations—the right hand of Sadulaev," and that Muskiev was directly responsible for the murder around 90 people in the village of Tsatsan-Yurt in the Kurchaloi district. Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov told Itar-Tass there were losses among the law enforcement personnel in the Argun battle, but gave no numbers. The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (ORChD) reported that two policemen were killed in the battled, while Radio Liberty reported that three policemen were killed, including the commander of Argun's special police group.

GENERAL LISTS SUCCESSES BUT GRENADES HIT THE INTERIOR MINISTRY

Col.-Gen. Arkady Yedelev, chief of the regional headquarters for counter-terrorist operations in the North Caucasus, told Interfax on September 12 that a total 231 rebel fighters had been eliminated and 890 rebels suspected of crimes arrested in sweep operations in Chechnya during the first eight months of this year. "Six high-ranking leaders, 13 militant group leaders and 23 emirs were among those eliminated," he said.
"Fifteen guerrilla leaders and 11 emirs have been detained since the beginning of the year." Commenting on security measures that are being taken in Chechnya ahead of parliamentary elections in the republic, set for November, Yedelev said: "The situation within the Chechen republic is favorable for parliamentary elections. It is under the total control of federal forces, the authorities of the Chechen republic and local law-enforcement agencies. We have no doubts that the elections will be prepared and will proceed in a calm atmosphere."

Meanwhile, thirteen people were wounded on September 13 when unknown attackers fired on the Chechen Interior Ministry building in Grozny with a grenade launcher. A republican law-enforcement source told Itar-Tass that nine police officers and civilians, including a woman, were among the injured, but that none of their lives were in danger. According to the news agency, it is believed that one person or several people fired on the building with a grenade launcher from a distance of approximately 1,500 meters away.

Interfax reported on September 13 that two police officers were killed and one wounded in a blast in Grozny. Quoting the Chechen Interior Ministry, the news agency reported that a police car ferrying an unidentified criminal suspect from the Grozny remand prison to the police station in Chechnya's Naursky district hit an explosive device and that the blast killed the deputy head of Naursky district police station's detention center and the policeman who was driving the vehicle. The third police officer and the detained suspect were wounded. Earlier on September 13, Chechen law enforcement sources told Interfax that the dead bodies of a police patrolman and an unemployed local woman had been found in an abandoned car in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district the previous day.

GUNMEN ALSO BUSY IN DAGESTAN

Unknown attackers fired on a police checkpoint on the southwestern outskirts of the Dagestani city of Buinaksk in the early hours of the September 13, killing one officer, Lt. Niyaz Gasanov, and wounding another. In the incident, which took place near a tuberculosis hospital, the gunmen fired from a nearby forest simultaneously from three points. Another attack on police took place in the village of Geli, in Dagestan's Karabudakhkentsky district, on the evening of September 11, when unknown gunmen traveling in a Niva automobile opened fire on a police post. The police fired back, killing one of the attackers, and the car turned over. When police tried to capture the second attacker, he blew himself up with a grenade. A Dagestani Interior Ministry told Kavkazky Uzel that the Niva used in the attack had been identified as having been used in attacks in which policemen were killed. A source in the Karabudakhkentsky district police department told the website that a second car was involved in the attack and that those driving in it managed to escape.

Kavkazky Uzel cited other sources as saying that the attackers in this incident had been involved in the September 6 shooting murder of three members of the Kayakentsky district police department on the Kavkaz federal highway (see Chechnya Weekly, September 7). In a statement that Kavkazcenter website posted on September 10, the Sharia Jamaat claimed responsibility for that attack and others, including the bomb blast in Makhachkala on September 2 that killed two servicemen from the 102nd brigade of Interior Ministry troops. Referring to reports that the bombing also killed three civilians, the Islamist group said that if those reports were true, they were "accidental victims" because its "mujahideen" had not seen civilians moving near "the occupation forces." The Sharia Jamaat statement continued: "Responsibility for the deaths of these people lies fully with Rusnya [a derogatory term for Russia-CW] and their Dagestani accomplices and lackeys who have been occupying the Islamic lands of Dagestan and the Caucasus and have unleashed a war against the religion of God and the Muslims here. We have warned the peaceful population of Dagestan on more than one occasion not to go near the occupation forces and the members of the so-called ‘Interior Ministry, FSB and Prosecutor's Office,' places where they gather, their deployment and patrol areas, transport and premises. Be vigilant, because they always try to stay close to the peaceful population and to use them as a shield." The Sharia Jamaat referred to itself as "the legitimate authority of Dagestan."

On September 12, Dagestani Interior Minister Adilgerei Magomedtagirov held a press conference to report on the republic's successes in fighting terrorism. He said that during the previous two-and-a-half months, 50 members of an "illegal armed formation" had been captured and 37 killed and that the "main leaders" of the "criminal groups" had been destroyed. According to Magomedtagirov, two suspected rebels, Kazim Radzhabov and Temirbulat Zubairov, were captured on September 9 in Makhachkala along with a homemade bomb, bomb components, and several grenades. The two suspects, he said, had been involved in various terrorist attacks, including the September 2 bombing in Makhachkala. "Up to four clandestine bandit groups are currently acting in the republic," Magomedtagirov told reporters. "They call themselves the Sharia group. According to information available to us, the total number of the bandits is up to 30 people. They are operating mainly in the cities Makhachkala, Khasavyurt and Buinaksk."

Dagestani State Council Chairman Magomedali Magomedov, for his part, painted a somewhat less rosy picture of the fight against the rebels, telling a meeting of Dagestan's Security Council on September 8 that "in many directions, the results of the fight against crime, and especially terrorism, have deteriorated." He claimed that terrorists have increased their activity because they are getting help from abroad. "Many connect the worsening crime situation and the rise of terrorist activity in Dagestan with the upcoming presidential elections, but, as reports of law enforcement structures' heads indicate, the rise in terrorist activity is related to the fact that they are being supported by certain forces based outside the republic and the country," Interfax quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, Interfax reported on September 12 that a serviceman had been killed on September 11 when a shootout took place between members of the Interior Ministry's 102nd brigade and Chechen policemen on the Kharami Pass that links Dagestan's Botlikhsky district and Chechnya's Vedeno district. "Under the conditions of poor visibility they apparently didn't make out who is who and got into a firefight," a source told the news agency. A Chechen policeman was wounded in the shootout.