71. Chechnya Weekly: Volume 7, Issue 21
- Publication Date:
- 05-2006
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- North Caucasus Weekly (formerly Chechnya Weekly), The Jamestown Foundation
- Abstract:
- Four federal Interior Ministry troops were killed and three wounded in an ambush by rebel fighters in Chechnya's Vedeno on May 24, Russian and Western news agencies reported. According to the online journal Gazeta, a Russian Interior Ministry unit was ambushed near the settlement of Eshilkhatoi in central Vedeno district at around 11:30 PM local time on May 23 (Gazeta, May 25). The unit was reportedly searching for a group of 15-20 suspected militants spotted in the region earlier that day. The three wounded servicemen, including one major, were first treated at the Khankala base outside Grozny and later at the Russian military base at Mozdok, North Ossetia, from where they were flown to the Internal Troops' Central Military Clinical Hospital in the city of Balashikha outside Moscow. Additional units were deployed to block off the area where the ambush occurred, with troops actively searching for the attackers. As Gazeta noted, however, past experience shows that the perpetrators of such attacks are apprehended "extremely rarely." "They often simply dissolve among the inhabitants of local villages," the website observed. "Furthermore, the extremists are better familiarized with the locality and know all of the forest and mountain trails. We would also note that the Vedeno district is considered to be Shamil Basaev's ancestral lands."
- Topic:
- Security and Ethnic Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Chechnya, and Moscow