From: MSN Nicknamepsychoteddybear24  (Original Message)    Sent: 11/16/2006 5:19 PM
RUSSIAN INTERIOR MINISTRY ADMITS CHECHEN RESISTANCE STILL POSES
'SERIOUS THREAT.' Following the deaths of Chechen Republic
Ichkeria President Abdul-Khalim Sadullayev and veteran field
commander Shamil Basayev on June 16 and July 10, respectively,
Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen officials pronounced the Chechen
resistance a spent force, numbering no more than a few dozen die-hard
fighters. But more recent assessments indicate that the Chechen
resistance numbers at least 700 men and still poses a "serious
threat."
Russian assessments of the strength of the Chechen resistance
have historically been approximate and contradictory, appearing
sometimes to have been exaggerated or downplayed for purely political
considerations.
The Russian daily "Kommersant," for example, on November 7
listed 14 separate estimates made between February 2000 and November
2006.
In August 2005, Taus Dzhabrailov, then-chairman of the
pro-Kremlin Chechen State Council, gave the number of fighters as
"somewhere between 800-1,000." One month later, presidential envoy to
Russia's Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak said the number
had recently increased to "around 1,500."
In mid-October, 2005, however, Colonel General Arkady
Yedelev, commander of the Combined Group of Forces in the North
Caucasus, cited a figure of just 800 fighters.
More recently, in the wake of the deaths of Sadullayev and
Basayev, pro-Moscow Chechen officials have sought to portray the
resistance as numbering only a few dozen men.
In August, Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov told
"Nezavisimaya gazeta" that the resistance numbered no more than 50-60
men, while his deputy, Adam Delimkhanov, cited a figure of 60 Chechen
fighters plus 20-30 "foreign mercenaries."Several hundred Chechen
fighters are said to have responded to Federal Security Service (FSB)
Director Nikolai Patrushev's July appeal to lay down their arms
and surrender. Even before the Russian State Duma formally adopted an
amnesty in mid-September, up to 200 militants were said to have
turned themselves in, with 50 fighters reportedly surrendering
personally to Kadyrov in his home town of Gudermes on August 29
alone.
The deployment in early October of two platoons from the East
and West battalions (predominantly composed of Chechen servicemen) to
serve in the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Lebanon may similarly
have been intended to send the message to the outside world that the
war in Chechnya is definitively over.
But the record of military operations conducted by the
Chechen resistance in September-October 2006, as posted on the
websites chechenpress.org and kavkazcenter.com, tells an entirely
different story.
Over that time period, resistance fighters have launched
multiple operations on an almost daily basis, in which they claim to
have killed or wounded dozens of Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen
servicemen. In tacit corroboration of those claims, Colonel General
Yevgeny Baryayev, who is commander of the Group of Federal Forces in
the North Caucasus, admitted to a gathering of Russian military
officials and Chechen government personnel in Grozny on October 12
that the combat situation was deteriorating.
Baryayev said the number of attacks and "acts of terrorism"
by Chechen militants was on the increase, but did not divulge any
casualty figures. He attributed the upsurge in resistance activity to
their receipt of "a large sum of money."
Baryayev's comments followed Chechen Republic Ichkeria
President and resistance commander Doku Umarov's appeal in
September for Muslims worldwide to provide financial support. Umarov
also issued instructions to his fighters in September on unspecified
changes in tactics, according to kavkazcenter.com on October 29,
although it is not clear whether there is any direct correlation
between those orders and the upsurge in resistance activity over the
past two months.
Speaking in Moscow on October 19, pro-Moscow Chechen
administration head Alu Alkhanov likewise admitted that the security
situation in Chechnya remains tense, and that militants have stepped
up operations in several districts, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported on
October 20.
Then, on November 3, Baryayev told a further meeting of
security personnel in Grozny that young recruits are still flocking
to joint the resistance ranks, and that Russian forces in southern
Chechnya are using artillery against militant groups in the mountains
in an attempt to pin them down, "Kommersant" reported on November 7.
On November 6, Colonel Nikolai Varavin, who heads the press
center of the Regional Operation Headquarters of the Antiterrorist
Operation in Chechnya, admitted openly that the resistance "poses a
serious threat" which, he implied, the Chechen police are not up to
the task of containing. Several days earlier, Varavin was quoted by
regnum.ru as saying that young men from Ingushetia and Daghestan are
also signing up to fight with the Chechen resistance.
Although Varavin did not say so explicitly, the loyalty of
many members of the Chechen police force -- especially former
resistance fighters who took advantage of earlier amnesties and were
subsequently offered employment by Prime Minister Kadyrov in his
so-called presidential guard regiment -- is open to question. Several
months ago, Akhmed Zakayev, the London-based foreign minister in the
Chechen Republic Ichkeria government, referred to up to 20,000 armed
Chechens, including senior officials in the pro-Moscow administration
who, he claimed, routinely aid and abet the resistance.
In an apparent move to improve the work of the pro-Moscow
Chechen Interior Ministry, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently
appointed a new first deputy interior minister, General Nikolai
Simakov, who will assume responsibility for the work of the criminal
police, according to "Kommersant" on November 7.
Alkhanov, however, argued at the November 3 meeting in Grozny
that simply intensifying military activities will not break the back
of the resistance, nor prevent young unemployed men from joining its
ranks, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported on November 7. He argued that
creating thousands of new job opportunities would not cost any more
than the ongoing military operation to wipe out the Chechen
resistance.
Meanwhile, FSB Director Patrushev on November 7 told a
session of the National Antiterrorism Committee that there is a "very
real danger" of terrorist attacks against hydroelectric plants in
southern Russia.
He said the committee "has intelligence suggesting that
hydropower facilities" in Volgograd, Saratov, and Rostov oblasts and
in Daghestan "are being targeted," adding that such attacks could
"involve catastrophic consequences, paralyze the region [involved],
lead to mass casualties, and cause serious economic losses."
"Vremya novostei" followed by noting on November 8 that the
Chechen resistance threatened in 1999 to blow up a dam and bridges
across the Volga, lenta.ru reported. The Chechen resistance Volga
Front claimed responsibility in late September for an explosion that
damaged a gas pipeline in Volgograd Oblast and vowed to strike again
at Russia's energy system. (Liz Fuller)