Russia has cancelled plans to cut its troop strength in Chechnya and is stepping up its search-and-kill operations after reports that resistance fighters are preparing new acts of terror, Sergei Ivanov, the defence minister, said yesterday.
Within minutes of his statement, the military command in the Chechen capital Grozny reported that rebels had shot down a helicopter, killing nine Russian servicemen.
The Mi-8 helicopter was brought down by a rocket fired from a ruined building on the edge of the city, Colonel Boris Podoprigora, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Chechnya, told the Interfax news agency. Eight other troops and police died in separate incidents at the weekend.
”In several villages, they are hiring suicide terrorists,” Ivanov said. ”In recent days, we have received more and more information that on the territory of Chechnya, and not only there, there are preparations by rebels for committing new terrorist acts.
”From today the group of [Russian] forces in Chechnya have launched broad-scale, tough and targeted special operations in all regions,” he said.
His comments seem to reverse orders he outlined after President Vladimir Putin met his senior security chiefs after the end of the Moscow hostage siege, nine days ago. Russia would withdraw ”excess” troops, Ivanov said then. The interior minister, Boris Brylov, also confirmed plans last week to set up a Chechen police force to take over from Russian police troops.
The switch in tone yesterday back to a hard line suggests that there continues to be strong resistance at the top of the army and the interior ministry to any troop reduction. Critics have accused officers of making money out of the war through illegal control of Chechnya’s thousands of small oil wells, as well as through kidnapping Chechens on suspicion of being terrorists and releasing them for ransom.
Unofficial estimates put the number of Russian troops in Chechnya as high as 80 000, which is far more per square mile than the 115 000 which the Soviet Union had in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Access to Chechnya by Russian and foreign correspondents is only permitted under the Kremlin’s control. Even the official tally of incidents suggests that rebels kill an average of two troops a day, and a pro-Kremlin official has acknowledged the 17 deaths over the weekend.
Meanwhile, in Denmark, a Chechen colleague of Akhmed Zakayev, a senior political leader of the resistance movement who was arrested last week, said Zakayev might apply for asylum rather than face extradition to Russia. ”We have discussed seeking asylum,” said Osman Ferzaouli. ”With asylum status, he can travel freely in Europe. That allows him to be politically and diplomatically active”.
Russia asked Interpol to arrest Zakayev more than a year ago for alleged terrorism, and renewed the request with vigour after the theatre siege in which it claims the last elected Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov, was involved. Zakayev has travelled regularly in Europe in the past two years as Maskhadov’s envoy. – Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001