Chechen Resistance Seizes Territory in Mountains

14/04/2001| IslamWeb

MOSCOW (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Chechen Resistance said on Monday they had taken control of a mountain town and village in a new upsurge of fighting in the strategic southern mountains of the war-racked Caucus Republic. (Read map caption below)
Russian military officials quoted by news agencies dismissed reports of fighting, but the Resistance said they had seized control of the town of Vedeno and the village of Tsa-Vedeno and were still holding them after three days.
It was the second time the Resistance had said they captured villages in that area this month. After the earlier incident the Resistance withdrew but continued to harry Russian forces on the narrow road leading into the gorge, they said.
Movladi Udugov, a Resistance spokesman seen as close to Resistance chiefs Shamil Basayev and Khattab, said by telephone from an undisclosed location that Arab-born Khattab had been leading the units near Vedeno.
Udugov said Russian warplanes had bombed the area during three days of fighting. A Russian armored column attempting to recapture Vedeno was destroyed and an infantry assault repelled.
Interfax news agency later quoted unnamed Russian military sources as denying any major clashes in the Vedeno area or the use of major air strikes. The situation there was ``difficult'' but ``on the whole remains under the control of federal forces,'' Interfax quoted one official as saying.
The office of Kremlin Chechnya spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky earlier this month made light of Resistance attacks in the area, calling them ``an imitation'' of military activity.
Moscow has said since March, 2000, that the Resistance are no longer a large scale military threat, although they continue to carry out deadly raids, ambushes and mine attacks on Russian forces nearly every day.
RESISTANCE RESPONSIBLE FOR MINE BLASTS
Udugov said Resistance also took responsibility for two mine attacks on Russian troop trucks in the capital Grozny, as well as attacks on Russian armored vehicles and troop carriers in several other villages and towns.
Interfax news agency said five policemen were killed and 14 wounded in two separate land mine blasts in Grozny.
On Saturday, three people were killed and 11 hurt in a blast in a marketplace in Gudermes, Chechnya's second city. Russian officials said two of the dead were the bombers. Udugov denied Resistance were behind that strike.
Udugov also said a harsh Russian blockade and sweep of the village of Alleroi was continuing, with residents cowering in the cellar of an agricultural school for more than a week while Russian forces ransacked the village.
He said more than 30 men had ``disappeared'' from the village. Russia has said it has arrested about 40 suspected Resistance men in sweeps in Alleroi, and killed at least nine.
International human rights groups have long deplored the Russian tactic of village sweeps, saying troops round up Chechen men indiscriminately as suspected Resistance men and frequently beat and torture them. Russia denies its troops commit large-scale abuse.
Russian troops withdrew from Chechnya after a 1994-96 war, but returned in 1999, occupying most of the province.
MAP CAPTION:
The Caucasus mountains form the boundary between West and East, between Europe and Asia, and between the Christian and Islamic worlds.They have lain for centuries on the frontiers of empires and their rugged highland peoples have never been completely subdued by conquering armies.The linguistic and ethnic map of the region is a complex mosaic. An area the size of California is home to dozens of nationalities.