The Chechen conflict, which led Wednesday to a daring hostage crisis in downtown Moscow, has already claimed the lives of 4 500 troops according to official figures, with between 10 000 and 20 000 civilians killed.
But official estimates are strongly challenged by human rights groups such as the Soldiers’ Mothers committee, which maintains that more than 11 000 soldiers have been killed in the three years since Russia poured troops into the separatist republic.
The Russian military has also claimed to have killed about 13 000 rebel guerrillas since a rebel attack on the neighboring republic of Dagestan in August 1999 prompted Moscow to launch what it terms an anti-terrorist campaign against Chechnya.
According to Moscow, up to 850 000 people now live in Chechnya, a figure which the rights activists consider ”theoretically impossible” as they believe that only 250 000 Chechens remain in their homeland.
A national census carried out earlier this month claimed that more than one million people still live in Chechnya, arousing considerable scepticism.
Over 200 000 Chechens fled their homeland for other parts of Russia, with 147 000 refugees settling in the neighboring Caucasian republic of Ingushetia, according to official estimates.
At considerable cost, Moscow maintains a military presence of over 80 000 soldiers in Chechnya, while the rebels number between 1 500 and 5 000 fighters.
Chechnya’s separatist president Aslan Maskhadov, considered chief of the rebel resistance, attempted to unite the rebel camp this summer by striking an alliance with the radical Islamist fraction left leaderless by the death of its leader, Saudi-born warlord Khattab.
The 37-year-old Khattab, one of the most feared of Chechnya’s Arab warlords, was killed in March after receiving a poisoned letter, according to Russia’s FSB security service which claimed to have arranged the ruse.
Khattab’s deputy Abu Walid, himself a Arab who fought the Soviet army in Afghanistan and later government troops in Tajikistan, took command of Chechnya’s eastern front under Maskhadov’s orders, according to the rebel Internet site Kavkaz.org.
Abu Walid is now considered one of Chechnya’s most active warlords, along with Chechen-born Doku Umarov, former chief of the separatist ”security council” and the radical Islamist group’s close crony, who now heads the western front of resistance.
Shamil Basayev, Chechnya’s arguably most dreaded warlord and architect of stunning hostage takings and the August 1999 attack on Dagestan, has faded into the background since a leg amputation in February 2000 impeded his activities.
Another of Moscow’s nightmares is 38-year-old Ruslan Gelayev, a lone wolf who led a spectacular breakthrough of his rebel group from Georgia into Ingushetia in September. The commando leader whose group has taken hundreds of people hostage in a Moscow theatre Wednesday, Movsar Barayev, is the nephew of slain rebel warlord Arbi Barayev, killed in June 2001 by Russian troops.
However, the 25-year-old commander, who had taken over his uncle’s troops but so far not led a major operation against Russian forces, had not yet achieved Arbi Barayev’s notoriety.
The rebels, who are holding up to 700 people hostage in a Moscow theatre, issued the Russian authorities with an ultimatum on Thursday: end the military operations in Chechnya within seven days or we blow up the theatre, the Chechen separatist website kavkaz.org said.
Between 40 and 50 Chechen separatists, including men and women, stormed into the theatre late on Wednesday, demanding an end to the war in Chechnya and threatening to blow up the building if security forces tried to storm it.
The Guardian Unlimited website reports that the gunmen burst onto the stage during the second act of a popular musical, firing shots into the ceiling. The gunmen ordered the cast off stage, then told all children to leave the theatre, the website reported. There were reports that Muslims had also been allowed to leave.
Members of the audience said that the gunmen had land mines strapped to their bodies and had drilled holes in the theatre structure and filled them with explosives, the website said.
CNN reported this morning that there had been an explosion in the area. No other details were available.
Meanwhile, the website said the rebels had shot dead a Russian policeman early this morning.
The website said that the policeman approached the theatre’s central entrance at around 6am Moscow time (0200 GMT), pretending to be drunk and demanding to be let in.
”After several warnings, the mujahadeen (Islamic fighters) shot the policeman,” kavkaz.org claimed.
A journalist from Moscow Echo radio who is among the captives reported at about the same time of the morning that the armed rebels had opened fire through a side-door.
”We can’t understand why it’s happening. There is panic among the hostages, they are begging not to start an assault under any circumstances,” the Interfax news agency reported her as saying.
Two gunshots were heard by an AFP correspondent near the theatre, apparently from outside the building.
The siege is the first such attack in the Russian capital in the history of the Russian-Chechen conflict, although hostage-taking is a well-tried tactic in the rebels’ violent bid for independence.
Here is a review of the main cases perpetrated in the name of Chechen independence over the last 10 years.
November 8, 1991 – A Tupolev 154 plane with 178 people on board, travelling from Mineralnye Vody in the Caucasus to Yekaterinburg in the Urals was hijacked by Chechen rebels and forced to fly towards Ankara. The hijackers finally released their captives in the Chechen capital Grozny. They were led by Shamil Basayev, a main player in the Chechen struggle.
June 14, 1995 – Following the deaths of 166 hostages from a group of around 1 500 people seized by Basayev in Budennovsk in southern Russia, the Chechens and Russians agreed a ceasefire, which was respected until December 1995.
From January 9-24, 1996 – Chechen gunmen took 2 000 people hostage at Kizlyar in the Russian Caucasus republic of Dagestan, then at Pervomayskaya, on the Dagestan-Chechen border. The death tally from various sources varied from 50 killed to 100.
January 16, 1996 – Pro-Chechen Turkish gunmen hijacked a ferry in the port of Trabzon, on the Turkish Black Sea coast, on its way to the Russian port of Sochi. Some 150 passengers, most of them Russians, were held before being released unharmed three days later. In March 1997, the nine hostage-takers received up to nine years in jail. The all escaped from prison two years later. Their leader Ahmet Tokvan was arrested as he tried to flee the country, imprisoned then amnestied.
March 15, 2001 – A Russian airliner was forced to fly from Turkey to the airport in Medina, Saudi Arabia by three Chechens calling for the end of the war in the breakaway republic. Three people — a hijacker, a stewardess and a Turkish passenger — died when Saudi security forces stormed the plane.
April 23, 2001 – Armed pro-Chechen Turkish gunmen took over 200 hostages in a big Istanbul hotel to protest against ”bloody” attacks in the Chechen republic. The hostage drama ended peacefully 12 hours later with the surrender of the assailants and the release of the hostages, including several foreign nationals. The head of the armed group was the same man who led the 1996 ferry hijacking.
July 31, 2001 – Thirty people were held near Mineralnye Vody by gunmen calling for Chechen independence. All the hostages were freed after security forces launched a rescue operation during which one of the hijackers was killed.
May 4, 2002 – An armed man, claiming to be a defender of the Chechen people, took 13 people hostage in a luxury hotel in central Istanbul, before giving himself up to police with no bloodshed an hour and a half later. – Sapa-AFP