Balalaika
This is for you:
My comment on an interview with a chechen rebel commander on BBC.

Sunday, 5 March, 2000, 19:41 GMT

A Chechen rebel commander has told the BBC that the war in Chechnya will last many more months and probably years.
..."

So what? Rebels ain't gonna pull russians out of Chechenya before election!? What a shame!!!

"The Chechen commander, who asked not to be named, said the rebels would now change their tactics. "

Did the rebels decided themselves about this change of tactics or did the russians give them a hint?

" Russia controls most of the republic's territory.
He said they would no longer try to hold onto towns and villages where the Russians could fire artillery shells at civilians."

Does he mean, the change of tactics is to protect civilian and remove the combat zone from civilian centers? What an hypocrite!!!

" The commander admitted that his forces had suffered some losses in
recent weeks...."

If I was you I would put this in large red font: Chechen rebels admit losses!!!

"The aim of the guerrilla campaign is to demoralise the Russian troops, giving them the impression that the rebels could strike any
time in any location."

... an impression only.

"The rebels seem convinced that the switch in strategy will pay off,
believing that eventually Russia will have no alternative but to
withdraw its troops from Chechnya. "

If they are so much convinced it will pay off why they didn't do it as soon as the russian army entered Chechenya. Why did they tried to hold Grozny to the end?
He will not say rebels have no choice!

"Despite the Chechens' confidence, Russia still controls most of the
republic and dislodging its forces will be a huge task. "

But no task is huge enough for a galant mujahideen. Isn't it?

By igor ( - 206.47.244.62) on Sunday, March 5, 2000 - 02:11 pm:
6 year old shoots 6 year old in USA ,care to comment JOHN? Don't worry about contract killing in Moscow,worry about 6 year old in your neighbourhood.



John, ignor this

The USA ,unlike the terrorist Russian nation does not commit wholesale genocide upon its OWN people

Sleep Well, Sitting Ducks!!

Deadly Chechen snipers are spreading fear among Russian troops.

By Erik Batuev in Gudermes, Chechnya (CRS No. 21, 3-Mar-00)

"Sometimes I find myself staring down my night-sights straight at a Chechen sniper who's
staring down his night-sights at me," mutters Sanka without moving his lips.

We're standing together in an observation tower, looking out over the Chechen town of
Gudermes. It is night and the compound is shrouded in mist. An hour ago, the curfew
snuffed out the lights in the surrounding houses. The silence is eerie.

"And then?" My whisper is impossibly loud. "Then we just look at each other in silence.
After a while, he nods at me and we go our separate ways."

Sanka is the scout for a detachment of railway troops, billeted in the camp behind us.
Gudermes was among the first Chechen towns to surrender to the federal army and has
been rewarded for its loyalty with gas, electricity and irregular supplies.

But the atmosphere here is charged with tension. There is a sense of lurking menace, a
sinister force that sleeps during the day and prowls by night.

The railway troops are feeling the strain. Sanka may put on a show of diffidence but the
knowledge that the Chechen snipers are toying with him has taken a heavy toll on his
nerves. He feels he is living on borrowed time. The Chechens pull the strings.

A whistle pierces the night and Sanka stiffens. "Sniper!" he says. "That's how they signal
to each other. They shoot at our base almost every night. First we hear one whistle, then
another. Sometimes they even howl like wolves."

Whatever they might say in Moscow, the term "occupied territory" has little meaning
here. The Chechen fighters materialise from nowhere, from the mountains, from the
direction of Grozny, from amongst the civilian population.

The railway compound is a favourite target. The federal army uses the trains to move
supplies around the war-torn republic. Sabotage raids on the railway line can seriously
handicap Russian troop movements and buy the rebel forces vital time.

Chechen hit-and-run gunmen keep up the heat. Early in February, the detachment's
special train - armed with an APC, rocket systems and heavy-calibre machine guns - was
attacked by rebel partisans. The railway troops beat off the attack after calling up support
from Interior Ministry units.

No one feels the pressure more than the sappers. Nikolai and Victor Vagin are twins:
Victor is a sapper, Nikolai an officer. Nikolai says that, when his brother defuses mines,
he feels Victor's nervous strain with every muscle in his body. So far they have
deactivated 500 explosive devices laid under the railway lines.

On one occasion, they tell me, a warrant officer performed a "safe detonation" by placing
the charge in a bombed out tank. The explosion sent the turret flying into the air, and it
fell to earth with the cannon spinning around like some huge, grotesque boomerang.

The soldiers in the watchtower smile broadly at the memory. In wartime, these moments
of bizarre comedy provide fleeting relief from the tension.

Suddenly, a machine-gun starts firing, about 400 metres from the perimeter fence.
One-in-five tracer stitches the night. It is completely mesmeric. Bleary-eyed soldiers drag
themselves from under tarpaulin bivouacs, jerking to their feet like puppets.

But Sanka doesn't move. He knows the Chechens pull the strings. This night they choose
to fire on four policemen at a nearby checkpoint. Their comrades bring the wounded in.
Tomorrow night, they may choose to fire at him.

Erik Batuev writes for Argumenty i Fakty and Moskovsky Komsomolets and is a regular
contributor to IWPR.

Chechen End Game

Chechen commanders hope to grind down Russia's fighting spirit by drawing its forces
into an exhausting war of attrition.

By Ruslan Isaev in Nazran, Ingushetia (CRS No. 21, 3-Mar-00)

History is turning full circle. On February 29, Russian state television showed pictures of
federal troops raising the tricolour over Shatoy - billed as the last rebel stronghold in
southern Chechnya. The reports then flashed to footage from the 1994-96 war - a powerful
moment of deja vu, as armoured personnel carriers rolled through the same village in June
1995 and the Russian generals declared total victory over the separatist forces.

Then, as now, their elation was premature. Shatoy itself is a tiny mountain outpost
consisting of three dirt streets and a cluster of desiccated houses. Its Chechen
commander, Hamzat Gilaev, claims his units left the village on the night of February 26,
retreating to mountain bases. "We did not consider the defence of Shatoy to be a military
necessity," he said glibly.

Now, the Chechen leaders are only too aware of their military priorities: to bog down the
federal army in a war of attrition until they can rally their forces, gather new supplies from
sympathisers abroad and mount a concerted offensive - probably in the early summer.

Last week, rebel vice-president Vakha Arsanov told his men, "A hard and bloody struggle
with the enemy stands before us. Remember what Dzhokhar Dudaev [Chechnya's first
president] said: 'Freedom is a precious commodity and we must pay dearly for it.'"

What goes around, comes around. Generations of Chechen leaders have appealed to
their fighters in much the same way - from Sheikh Mansur, defeated by Catherine the
Great in 1791, to Imam Shamil who resisted the Russians for 25 years. In August 1839,
Shamil and 4,000 Chechens were trapped in the fortress of Akhulgo. When they realised
they were defeated, the fighters threw themselves on the Russian bayonets while mothers
killed their children with their own hands.

Now the Russian generals have once again driven the Chechens into a corner and left
them with few options. On Friday, Russia's acting president, Vladimir Putin, rejected a
proposal for peace talks from Chechnya's Aslan Maskhadov, on the grounds that
Maskhadov was wanted as a war criminal.

Although an amnesty for rebel fighters to voluntarily hand over their weapons has been
extended to April 1, tales of summary executions and savage brutality at the
Chernokozovo "filtration" camp will serve to dissuade any war-weary fighter from throwing
himself on Moscow's mercy.

Instead the Chechen commanders are searching for the means to continue the war
indefinitely. Significant numbers of rebel fighters are already thought to have escaped into
Georgia, where fortified bases have long been established in the mountains around Shatili.
Unmarked helicopters carrying medical supplies and weaponry are said to fly regular
missions across the Georgian border.

Meanwhile, the Jordanian-born field commander Emir Khattab has been attempting to
whip up support amongst Dagestani Wahhabis - members of his own Islamic sect. During
a meeting with Dagestani commanders last week, he outlined the second phase of
Operation Hamzat-Bek - the campaign to create an independent Islamic state in the North
Caucasus.

For the meantime, it is the region around Shatoy that will become the focus of continued
Chechen resistance. Here echoing ravines and rocky fastnesses conceal dozens of caves
and natural hangars where the Chechens have established their bases. The rebel fighters
move freely across the mountainous terrain, their camouflaged trails snaking west out of
the Vedeno Gorge.

Here the Russian army is faced with its own worst nightmare: sending in elite paratroops
and marines to flush out the rebels while their Uragan and Grad multiple-rocket systems
remain silent and their warplanes grounded. In the first Chechen conflict, the partisan war
dragged on for more than a year, before a surprise rebel counter-attack recaptured Grozny
and forced the Russians to sign an uneasy peace.

Already, guerrilla tactics are being employed with deadly effect. On March 1, separatist
"mujahideen" attacked an armoured column near Itum-Kale and reportedly destroyed five
APCs and three trucks. They also claimed a successful ambush near Ulus-Kert during
which two APCs were knocked out before the Chechen attackers melted into the
surrounding forest.

On Thursday, a surprise raid was staged in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district, the first
since the capital fell at the end of January. The Russian army has admitted that 37
OMON (Special Police Unit) servicemen were killed in the ambush, with another 12
wounded.

The current state of the rebel forces remains the butt of increasing propaganda from both
sides. The Russians claim only 2,000 fighters remain in the mountains and estimate
Chechen casualties at 12,000 dead and 4,000 wounded. The separatists say they have
5,000 armed guerrillas scattered across the republic as well as 10,000 more "sleepers"
who have taken refuge in occupied villages.

More importantly, the most influential and respected Chechen commanders are still
thought to be alive and fighting fit. These include Ruslan Gelaev, Chechen President
Aslan Maskhadov, Vice President Vakha Arsanov and Turpal-ali Atgeriev, head of
Chechen security. Even badly wounded leaders such as Shamil Basaev continue to elude
the federal forces. "These invalids hobble around the republic at such speed that it's
impossible to keep up with them," commented one Russian officer.

Most observers say the leadership will soon decamp to the Nozhay-Yurt area, in
north-eastern Chechnya, said to be a virtual no-man's land where Russian control is
largely symbolic. This will allow them to regroup and oversee operations both in the
mountains and in occupied territory.

However, the rebel government maintains it has no plans to take the war on to Russian
soil. In an interview circulated amongst the local population on videocassette, Arsanov
says, "We are preparing serious manoeuvres, not diversionary tactics."

The Russian army, however, is preparing to combat the latter. "The police phase" of the
"anti-terrorist operation" will focus on mopping up shattered rebel units rather than fending
off a concerted attack. The Russian Ministry of Defence is planning to pull 60,000 troops
out of Chechnya - 60 per cent of its total force - and hand over control to the Ministry of
Internal Affairs which controls around 15,000 servicemen in the region.

In a televised interview last week, the deputy commander of the Northern Army Group,
Major-General Vadim Timchenko, ruled out the possibility of a partisan war because "the
rebels lack the support of the local population".

But the Russians may well have overestimated the extent of their control over occupied
Chechnya. Rebel propaganda minister Movladi Udugov commented last week, "The
Russian army is like a huge ship which has ploughed through the Chechen republic,
leaving nothing in its wake. As soon as it passes, the waters simply close behind it."

Ruslan Isaev is a freelance reporter for Radio Liberty and a regular contributor to IWPR.

Hey Kisako,

Getting tired of reading this!

Chechen rebels deal Russians second setback

By Ron Popeski

MOSCOW, March 6 (Reuters) - Russia's army has suffered its second major setback in less than a week in Chechnya, throwing into question the drive by the country's leadership for a quick knock-out blow to the region's separatists.

A top commander, Colonel-General Gennady Troshev, said on Sunday 31 paratroops had died in a new bout of fierce fighting in the Argun gorge south of the regional capital Grozny.

Twenty members of the elite OMON police force were killed last week when their convoy came under fire on the edge of the capital. They were to be buried on Monday north of Moscow.

Both areas were believed to be under the control of Russian forces. Grozny was captured last month and army commanders had announced last week that they had taken control of the last remaining rebel stronghold -- the mountain village of Shatoi.

``We could not avoid casualties. It is difficult to talk about losses, but no one is going to conceal anything,'' Troshev told NTV television of fighting last Friday in the Argun gorge villages of Ulus-Kert and Selmentausen.

``The sixth paratroop company came under fierce attack from the bandits and lost 31 servicemen. There are also wounded.''

Footage broadcast on NTV showed unrelenting exchanges of fire near Selmentausen, with villagers looking on calmly. Reports had spoken of intense fighting in various points in the gorge throughout the weekend.

19:01 03-05-00

Hey Kisako,
Getting tired of reading this!
Chechen rebels deal Russians second setback
By Ron Popeski
* I, luckily, don't need any popeskis and Yous - I've watched entire footage myself. Heh. Why, is it the second? By watching the board it seems to be the fourth? For those "fighters" surrendered it is doesn't matter though. 31 of paras died. NTV reported some 600 "fighters" dead, so, it's some 350-400 had their dream come true.

>>> For those "fighters" surrendered it is doesn't matter though. 31 of paras died. NTV reported some 600 "fighters" dead, so, it's some 350-400 had their dream come true.

kisako,

you miss one important differnce. the death of 31 paras has been acknowledged by russians themselves (so that the true figure may be even higher). on the other hand, "600 dead" chechens is the products of russian sources, and so far has not been mentioned in any statements from the chechen side.

For the lack of silver lining, promised by that lier Kisako, ...
* I promised nothing. Balalaika Enterprises joint venture seems to adopt the tactics of supplying little lies like this to manipulate the opinion. Worked well on gullibles during the whole Yugo affair.

Balalaika

Che blea chyrka :))) Ya smotru ti tyt cveta menaesh blea. Ti blea preamo kak petyx :))

Kisako,
you miss one important differnce. the death of 31 paras has been acknowledged by russians themselves (so that the true figure may be even higher). on the other hand, "600 dead" chechens is the products of russian sources, and so far has not been mentioned in any statements from the chechen side.
* I will not hold my breath and expect some khattab.com/net/org/edu/mil come out with anything except blaring about those poor 31 paras in huge red font.

Svoloch, thanks for that Babitzki info. That "forest partizan" stuff is worth the book of records.

Kisako

You welcome.

Anyone interested in reading Rambouillet Agreement

By CanadianBacon ( - 195.44.0.224) on Sunday, March 5, 2000 - 06:14 pm:

>By igor ( - 206.47.244.62) on Sunday, March 5,
>2000 - 02:11 pm:
>6 year old shoots 6 year old in USA ,care to
>comment JOHN? Don't worry about contract
>killing in Moscow,worry about 6 year old in your
>neighbourhood.


>John, ignor this
>
>The USA ,unlike the terrorist Russian nation
>does not commit wholesale genocide upon its
>OWN people


The terrorist U.S. regime condones, encourages, and profits from the murder in abortion chambers of 1.5 million pre-born babies.
1.5 million murders in the U.S. alone every year.

The USA commit wholesale genocide on its own people! And the U.S. regime also aids and abets the genocidal Turks by covering up their crimes against the Armenians. The U.S. stoood by and did nothing while the Indonesian Mohamedan regime butchered the East Timorese Christians.
The U.S. butchered Serbs and continues to support terrorist KLA ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovo Serbs. The U.S. aided and abetted the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia. The U.S. regime waged genocidal war against Iraqis and continues to bomb Iraqi civilians.

Yes, the U.S. regime is the world's premier outlaw criminal terrorist regime.

Go Serbs!!!
Go Ruskies!!!!
Go Armenians!!!
Gharabaghu Mern e!!!!
Moosulmannerin taghenk menk!!!