Chechen Rebels Kill 15 in Ambush

[Said1]

Chechen Rebels Kill 15 In Ambush on Policemen

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 20, 2005; Page A18

MOSCOW, July 19 -- At least 15 people were killed Tuesday when rebels ambushed and blew up a police vehicle in Chechnya, the southern Russian republic wracked by a separatist insurgency.

The assailants first opened fire on police outside a school in the town of Znamenskoye, Russian news agencies reported. When more security forces arrived at the scene, the attackers destroyed the vehicle, the agencies said.


Most of the dead were police officers, but officials said three were civilians, including two children. Twenty people were wounded, some seriously.

Russian forces and their local allies clash almost daily with Chechen separatists. It is the second such conflict over the past decade in Chechnya, where the fighting has killed as many as 100,000 people.

The area of Chechnya where Tuesday's attack occurred, about 40 miles northwest of the regional capital, Grozny, had been relatively quiet since a May 2003 truck bomb attack on a government compound in Znamenskoye killed 60 people.

"A bloody war has been unleashed against us, a war without any rules," said Alu Alkanov, president of the semiautonomous republic's pro-Moscow government.

A Web site where insurgent statements often appear said that the initial firefight was designed to draw more policemen to the scene and maximize casualties with an explosion. "There were no losses on the Chechen side," the statement said. "The resistance fighters returned to their base without any particular problems."

At a government meeting after the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that "the tragic events in the Nadterechny region show that all we are planning must be done, and must be done quickly."

But an element of pessimism has begun to emerge among some in the Russian government, which has long insisted that it was crushing the rebels and normalizing life in the region.

Putin's special envoy to Chechnya, Dmitry Kozak, warned recently in a report to the president that the mostly Muslim part of southern Russia risked becoming a "macro-region of sociopolitical and economic instability" unless widespread abuse of power by local governing elites was reined in.

Link

 

[Annie]

Link

and the Crusades go on in the East and West. None of it is fair and there is no justice-to anyone.

 

[dilloduck]

and the Crusades go on in the East and West. None of it is fair and there is no justice-to anyone.

even worse--it can't be stopped

 

[Said1]

and the Crusades go on in the East and West. None of it is fair and there is no justice-to anyone.

I think the "rebels" in that region are the most dangerous. The thought of them joining forces elsewhere is terrifying - IMHO.

 

[Annie]

I think the "rebels" in that region are the most dangerous. The thought of them joining forces elsewhere is terrifying - IMHO.

My guess there has been some linking, but much like the Palestinian problem, there is also the tribal element, thus as soon as the 'enemy' is dealt with, they turn on each other.

 

[Said1]

My guess there has been some linking, but much like the Palestinian problem, there is also the tribal element, thus as soon as the 'enemy' is dealt with, they turn on each other.

I've read little blurbs about Chechen rebels in Afghanistan, although nothing concrete. When all is done, they should take up quilting, might keep their hands busy enough to forget about their guns for awhile.

 

[Annie]

I've read little blurbs about Chechen rebels in Afghanistan, although nothing concrete. When all is done, they should take up quilting, might keep their hands busy enough to forget about their guns for awhile.

I might be wrong or it may have been an herring, but thought there was a connection with the Spanish bombing, on top of the other outsiders?

 

[Said1]

I might be wrong or it may have been an herring, but thought there was a connection with the Spanish bombing, on top of the other outsiders?

I don't remember........much these days. :cof:

 

[freeandfun1]

I think the "rebels" in that region are the most dangerous. The thought of them joining forces elsewhere is terrifying - IMHO.

I was watching a documentary the other night on the History Channel and they were interviewing Marines that took part in the brutal fight for Fallujah. According to them, they captured numerous Chechen insurgents fighting Fallujah. For some reason, this is not being reported in the MSM (for some reason... ). They said a large number of the fighters in Fallujah were Chechens that were shooting themselves up with narcotics and that when you would shoot them, they would just keep coming. They were using speed to help stay awake and to fight as long as they could even when injured.

 

[nosarcasm]

A good summary of the Chechen connection to the Arab
Islamist.

http://www.saag.org/papers11/paper1036.html