More on the subtle complexities of the Central Asian Conflict.
LL [wacko]
Chechen Rebels in Limbo Vow Endless Resistance
http://www.nytimes.c...ope/23CHEC.html
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
TBILISI, Georgia, Aug. 17 — The band of 60 fighters had stopped for the night beside a shallow river in the rugged mountains of southern Chechnya on July 27 when the full fury of Russian military force fell on them before dawn.
Russian airstrikes — followed by shelling — scattered the Chechen fighters deeper into the forests of the Kerigo Gorge, south of Itum-Kale. "They began bombing without any warning," a 35-year-old fighter, who identified himself only as Ruslan, said. "We didn't have time to put our shoes on."
The bombing began a battle that, at its most intense, lasted four days, one of the most significant firefights in Chechnya in a year. The fighters, many already badly wounded, did not fight back as much as fight to escape, trying to elude squads of Russian troops dropped into the mountains to cut them off. At least eight Russians were reported killed, while the Chechens lost dozens, including their commander.
With Russian bombs still chasing them, 13 of the fighters made it across the mountains into Georgia and into the middle of a diplomatic dispute between Georgia and Russia over the war in Chechnya.
Almost three years after its forces stormed Chechnya a second time, Russia is mired in a war of attrition against small groups of fighters like this one. The fighters are no longer able to confront Russian troops head-on, but they remain determined to inflict as much pain as possible in the name of Chechen independence.
Twelve of the 13 caught in the Kerigo Gorge are now in the main detention center here in Georgia's capital awaiting Georgia's decision on whether to extradite them, as Russia has demanded. The fighter who called himself Ruslan lies in Tbilisi's decrepit hospital, recovering from severe stomach wounds.
In interviews in the prison and in the hospital, the fighters provided a rare glimpse of the war in Chechnya from the point of view of those still resisting, despite overwhelming Russian numbers and military might. Their angry bravado — their determination to isolate themselves from family in the pursuit of an all-but-hopeless conflict — underscores the depth of opposition that Russia faces.
And paradoxically the Russian tactics in this struggle — disproportionate airstrikes, security sweeps through villages, hostility toward the local Chechens — have hardened their resistance, the fighters say.
"We are not drafted by military commissariats," said one, who identified himself as Adlan. "It's just impossible to see all the atrocities committed and to not fight."
"If I stay alive," Adlan asserted, "I will fight in 10 wars — until they leave Chechnya alone."
The fighters — most of them gaunt, scarred men in their 20's — denied that they had crossed into Chechnya from Georgia, which Russia accuses of providing a haven for the rebels. They said their group had been operating in the remote, mountainous regions of southern Chechnya since July.
Most said they were originally from Chechnya's capital, Grozny, but had not been home since the second war erupted in 1999. For nearly three years, they said, they have been hiding in southern Chechnya and avoiding villages because, as a fighter named Ramzan said, "the people there will be punished by the Russians for collaborating."
They are veterans not only of the second war in Chechnya, but also of the first, which ended in Russia's withdrawal in 1996.
Khusein Khizriyev, a fair-haired 26-year-old from Samashki, said he had been living for the last two years with his uncle, a shepherd in the hills of Itum-Kale. When ordered by rebel commanders, he took up arms.
He sold smuggled gasoline and gathered food. The fighters said they relied on support from Chechen villagers. In some cases, they said, they bought weapons from Russians.
Although the fighters cannot mount significant offensives, he said, attacks continue. "It's clear the people still resist," he said. "And they will continue to resist until there are no men among the Chechens."
A bullet tore through his knee in the fighting in Kerigo Gorge. He ended up with a group of six others who crossed into Georgia and on Aug. 3 surrendered to Georgia border guards. A second group surrendered two days later.
These fighters are being held on charges of illegally entering Georgia with weapons, which could bring 10 years in prison if they are tried and convicted. If they are extradited, they could face life in a Russian prison — or worse.
Except for Mr. Khizriyev, the fighters spoke on the condition that only their first names be used, and some refused even that. Georgian prosecutors have given Russia a list of names, but a Justice Ministry official said he was not sure the fighters had revealed their true identities. Several fighters said they feared retribution against their families if the Russians knew their names.
Adlan, a 47-year-old who appeared to be the ranking member of the group in prison, said he had five children whom he hid in Grozny when the second Chechen war began. "On Sept. 4, it will be three years since I saw them," he said.
He is a former sergeant of the old Soviet Army. "It was the Soviet Union that taught me to fight," he said. When war came to Chechnya, first in 1994, there was no choice in his mind but to fight; the choice remained equally clear when war resumed in 1999.
Chechnya's fighters, Adlan and others said, follow orders of the separatist leader, Aslan Maskhadov, but it is clear they fight in small, loosely organized groups. "If we had 10 percent of the weapons Russia has," Adlan added, "we would be bombing the Kremlin and Putin would be giving all his orders and decorations posthumously."
He, like the others, vowed that the resistance would never end, saying the Chechens had struggled against Russian dominance in the Caucasus for 400 years.
"They didn't kill all of us," Adlan said of the fighters routed in Kerigo Gorge. "They will never be able to kill all of us."
©New York Times
