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Basayev's right-hand man jugged
Basayev's right-hand man and the leader of a militant group in Chechnya's Nauri district, has been arrested in Chechnya, Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for the Regional Operational Headquarters for the Anti-terrorist Operation in the North Caucasus, told RIA Novosti. "Law enforcers have detained a 26-year-old resident of Chechnya who was hiding in the Rubezhnoye village in the Nauri district. He was reportedly an active member of the illegal militant movement and was appointed by Shamil Basayev to lead a gang that was active in the Nauri district," said Mr. Shabalkin.

The arrestee confessed he had undergone a month long blasting and mining course and had been trained by Arab mercenary Abdulhakim, a subordinate to warlord Abu al-Walid, according to Mr Shabalkin. "The arrestee also confessed that he had committed a series of grave crimes along with militants trained in Hattab and Abu al-Walid's camps," said Mr. Shabalkin. In June 2001, for example, the arrestee blasted a railroad section not far from the Mekenskaya station in the Nauri district. In November 2002, he blasted a section of the Terek-Nauri railroad when a freight train was en route. In 2003, the criminal activated an improvised bomb on the Nauri-Terek motorway, blew up a freight train on the Nauri-Nikolayevskaya railroad span, fired a vehicle carrying law enforcers from a grenade launcher on the Nauri-Ishcherskaya road and perpetrated a blast on the Terek-Nikolayevskaya railroad section. In September 2004, the militant shelled a police car, while in November 2004 he made an assassination attempt at the Rubezhnoye village administration chief.

[In other news:]
  • A militant was killed in a clash in Chechnya's Itum-Kalin district. Two federal servicemen were wounded, according to a Chechen interior ministry source.

  • Gunmen have kidnapped a police officer and a jobless man in Grozny, a source in the law enforcement agencies told RIA Novosti on Monday.

  • A woman came to a police station yesterday saying unknown men in camouflage uniforms had broken into her home a few hours earlier. They threatened her cousin and an inspector of the Zavodskoi district's interior department with weapons, forced them into their cars and driven them away.

Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-12-07
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=50634