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| Caucasus |
| Russers will draw down Chechnya force |
| 2002-07-02 |
| Russia's military is shrinking its 80,000-strong force in Chechnya to a tighter, long-term force, in a withdrawal that may wrap up by the end of the year. Col. Gen. Vladimir Moltenskoi repeated Russian claims that the fighters under rebel Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov are no longer able to mount serious resistance to Russian forces, despite continued rebel raids that killed five servicemen and injured nine in the latest daily Russian casualty count. Maskhadov "has no more resources to organize resistance against the federal troops because in the spring, the rebels suffered major losses that they are not able to make up for," Moltenskoi said. You might say that. They beat him up and burned his house down. Khattab getting killed didn't help them much — he was probably the guy who knew the money guys back in Soddy Arabia. Moltenskoi was quoted as saying the current overall Russian force in Chechnya was about 80,000 servicemen from the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and other agencies. The Defense Ministry force is being reduced to 22,000 troops, including a 14,000-strong permanent division and military commandant's offices, he said. That was the usual setup under the Soviets: a full-strength division, headquarters troops, and a few other divisions in cadre strength. They said they were going to do this about a month ago, and Putin was claiming they'd stabilized the situation back in March. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #1 The Russians would not mention another important factor: The eradication of hundreds of the Chechens' best trained and most fanatical jihadis during US operations in Afghanistan. |
| Posted by: Piltdown 2002-07-02 14:52:55 |