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| Caucasus |
| 7 Russians killed in Chechnya |
| 2003-11-27 |
| Seven Russian soldiers and policemen were killed in rebel attacks in Chechnya over the past day, an official in the Kremlin-backed Chechen administration said on Wednesday. The Chechen official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said five servicemen died when Russian military outposts came under fire and another died in a clash near the town of Vedeno, in which two rebels also were killed. A Chechen militia member was killed in a shootout with rebels in Shali, he said. Three Chechen districts were hit with Russian air strikes and one of the districts also took Russian artillery barrages, the official said. Russia’s soldiers vastly outnumber the rebels and have heavier weaponry, but they have been unable to uproot rebels from the capital Grozny or from the mountainous southern third of the republic. The rebels attack soldiers near-daily in hit-and-run assaults and kill others with land mines or remote-controlled explosives. Russian forces returned to Chechnya in 1999 in the second attempt in a decade to crush separatist rebels. Federal forces had withdrawn from the mostly Muslim region in southern Russia after a 1994-96 war that killed tens of thousands of soldiers, rebels and civilians and ended with the separatists in control. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 This just points out that there is a right way and a wrong way. Critics of US methods in Iraq should take notice and the shut up. |
| Posted by: SPQR 2755 2003-11-27 3:09:02 PM |