Russia seals Chechnya amid bomb threats

Russia seals Chechnya amid bomb threats
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

MOSCOW, JULY 4: Russian forces sealed off the Chechen republic today, a day after a series of bombings killed at least 44 soldiers.

The Russian military completely cordoned off the separatist republic to begin a large-scale mopping-up operation to find accomplices to the suicide bombers who struck on Sunday and Monday in four Chechen towns. Eighteen persons have already been arrested, the ITAR-TASS reported.

Television channels cautioned residents that anyone found on the streets after the curfew beginning 9:00 pm on Monday would be shot without warning. Checkpoints around the republic were reinforced with extra men and weapons.

Russian officials blamed the Interior Ministry forces for slackness in security. An internal investigation had shown that the Interior Ministry troops had failed to take adequate security measures despite orders from senior commanders, the Kremlin's top spokesman on Chechnya said. Top Chechen spokesperson Movladi Udugov threatened to extend the suicide bombings across the Russian Federation. ``We have two battalions numbering some 500 suicide bombers, who are prepared and awaiting orders to carry out operations within Chechnya and throughout the rest of Russia,'' he said on Monday. Udugov named the bombings would stop if Russia handed over colonel Yuri Budanov, arrested in March for murdering a Chechen woman, and released 450 women and children allegedly held in Russian jails.

Udugov said on telephone Chechnya was being cordoned off to allow helicopters to remove the bodies of hundreds of soldiers killed in the four blasts without journalists seeing them and therefore suppressing the death toll. He claimed 673 soldiers had been killed 303 in Naibyora, 150 in Gudermes, 140 in Urus Martan and 80 in Argun.

In a report shown early today on the private NTV channel, Malik Saidulayev, head of the republic's Chechen Council, supported the new rebel suicide tactics. ``This is war. These are not terrorists but people giving away their lives to show that there is no peace in Chechnya,'' said Saidulayev.

``Russia should hold talks with the Chechen commanders. It is pointless talking to Maskhadov. To the fighters, he is not the Chechen President, just Maskhadov,'' said Saidulayev. He blamed the latest upsurge in fighting on the appointment by Moscow of Muslim cleric Akhmad Kadyrov as Chief Administrator of Chechnya. Kadyrov's house too was fired upon on Sunday.

Pavel Krasheninnikov, head of a Parliamentary Commission for Human Rights in Chechnya, told NTV that the terrorist acts were ``purely business to those who earn higher wages for higher casualties''. The Chechen website, www.kavkaz.org, posted a message today from Jordanian-born warlord Khattab saying he did not rule out ``a full-scale assault'' on Gudermes, Russia's administrative capital and Kadyrov's hometown, and on Urus Martan, a former rebel stronghold.

Deputy Interior Ministry Ivan Golubev told ORT television that six trucks had been loaded with explosives but the other two had failed to detonate. Late last year, rebel commander Shamil Basayev had threatened to unleash a wave of Islamic suicide attacks on Russia. The operation in Chechnya began soon after apartment bombings across Russia in August and September killed 292 people.