INGUSHETIA: REBEL RAIDS AND RUSSIAN REPRISALS AS CHECHNYA WAR SPREADS NORTH
by Raven Healing
On the night of June 21, three towns in Ingushetia, the Russian province
neighboring war-torn Chechnya, were attacked by an estimated 200 armed men.
In Nazran, Karabulak and Sleptsovsk, over 90 people were killed in the
raids which continued late into the night. Police stations, checkpoints and
offices of military and law enforcement agencies were targeted. The rebels
took over the checkpoints, then presented themselves as guards, checking
the papers of all passing cars. They killed those with official or military
identification. Rank-and-file military men were beaten, but not killed if
they swore on a Koran to leave the agencies.
Among the dead are the Ingush Interior Minister Colonel Abubakar Koshtoev,
a UN aid worker, local police officers and several civilians. According to
reports on Radio Free Europe, the fighters who claimed responsibility
identified themselves as "The Martyrs Brigade." The Brigade was said to be
under the command of Shamil Bassayev, a notorious Chechen rebel leader
responsible for numerous attacks--including the hostage-taking of a
maternity ward and the infamous Nord-Ost Moscow opera house hostage siege
in 2002.
One police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was taken
hostage by the rebels. He claimed they spoke Ingush, not Chechen, and
quoted them as saying, "We do not kill traffic policemen. We kill
investigators, prosecutors and judges who abduct and kill Ingush people and
who sold themselves to the Russian secret services." This apparently
references recent reports of abductions and murders of Ingush and ethnic
Chechens in Ingushetia by "death squads."
According to the human rights group Memorial, no help from federal Russian
forces arrived during the attack, which lasted four hours. The federal
units were at the border of Ingushetia and Ossetia by 2 AM, an hour before
the attacks finished. However, the units remained there, just a five-minute
drive from Nazran, until dawn--leading to local speculation that Russian
authorities allowed the attack to happen to justify reprisals.
Two days after the attacks, mass detainments of Chechen refugees were
carried out by Russian authorities on refugee settlements in Ingushetia. On
June 23, 50 men were taken from the camp in Altievo. Both men and women at
the camp were beaten during the operation. The next day, gas and
electricity to the camp were cut off. The families were ordered to return
to Chechnya, and at least 70 families fled that day.
According to reports, women were "abused" and objects of value were stolen
from the refugees during the operations. On June 25, some of the detainees,
severely beaten, were returned to their families. Also on the 25th, mop-up
operations began in Nazran and Chechen refugees fled en masse to Chechnya.
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Special to WORLD WAR 3 REPORT, July 7, 2004
Reprinting permissible with attribution
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