Foreign-backed terrorists are still operating in the separatist republic of Chechnya and receiving money and weapons from other countries, Russian Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said on Wednesday.
”Chechnya has not been freed from terrorism. Active combattants in the northern Caucasus are receiving money, weapons and ideological support from foreign countries,” said Gryzlov.
The admission came more than a month after a constitutional referendum in Chechnya which the Russian authorities had presented as proof that the situation in the breakaway southern republic was returning to normal and that the separatists had been defeated.
The May 23 poll approved a new constitution and paved the way for presidential and parliamentary elections within the coming year.
”The organisers and the money for terrorist acts are abroad. We know this from telephone taps,” Gryzlov said.
”There aren’t just two or three foreign funds financing terrorism in Russia but a much greater number,” he said.
The minister noted that Russia had suggested creating an international data bank on terrorist organisations at this week’s meeting in Paris of justice and interior ministers of the Group of Eight industrialised nations.
Partipants had ”agreed that centres of international terrorism still exist in Chechnya and also in Georgia.”
Russia has accused Georgia of allowing Chechen rebels to use its lawless Pankisi Gorge region, bordering Chechnya, as a rear base. Chechen insurgents demanding independence but described by Russia as ”terrorists” have been fighting a rearguard action in the republic’s southern mountains since Russia sent in tens of
thousands of troops in October 1999.
Russia has consistently sought to link the rebels with international terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, alleging that they have received support from other Muslim countries notably Saudi Arabia. – Sapa-AFP