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Chechen Conflict Mirrors Afghan Options - Tough terrain, Islamic rebels stymie Russia

Moscow -- Clusters of rebels hide in impregnable mountains, launching hit-and- run raids on federal troops and mining the roads they travel on. Guerrilla fighters ambush and kill several soldiers every day. After seven years of war, insurgent leaders remain at large.

This is the war in Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya, where small groups of Islamic separatists continue to operate, despite the Kremlin's ferocious campaign to crush them.

A replay of the bloody Chechen quagmire -- an intermittent conflict waged without front lines or respect for borders -- may be what is in store for Afghanistan.

As the Taliban rapidly abandon their positions, groups of fighters continue to roam the country, launching surprise hits on the U.S.- backed opposition and Western journalists in areas that have been declared liberated from the violent Islamic regime. The war between the extremist Islamic militia and the U.S.-backed opposition is far from over.

No one knows this better than the Kremlin.

In October 1999 the Russian army re-entered Chechnya, from which it had withdrawn in 1996 after a failed two-year operation to quell the revolt. Moscow said the campaign would last a few months; in a matter of weeks, the army swept through the province, and by mid-January 2000 it had captured the capital, Grozny.

Back then, the Kremlin said that having won the cities, Russia had basically won the war.

The Kremlin was wrong.

Two years into its effort to weed out rebel sympathizers, Russia continues to lose soldiers in daily clashes with the elusive enemy. As of May, Moscow said 3,500 Russian servicemen had died. Watchdog groups in Moscow, such as the Soldiers' Mothers Committee, say the losses are at least twice as high.

The civilian toll may be even higher. Russian officials do not keep track of losses among civilians and deny that the army is deliberately mistreating ordinary Chechens. However, Aslanbek Aslakhanov, a Chechen member of the Russian parliament, said recently that 10 to 15 civilians were murdered every day.

Now, the same Kremlin spin masters who for the past two years had been saying that victory was just around the corner admit that, having conquered Chechnya's land, Moscow has failed to subdue its people.

Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin's top spokesman on Chechnya, warned last week that the U.S.-backed opposition in Afghanistan should expect the same result. Chechens and Afghans alike consider their lands unconquerable -- a psychology that works against imposed military solutions.

"The quick taking of cities in Afghanistan does not mean the end of military activity," Yastrzhembsky said. "The experience of Chechnya shows seizing populated areas does not signify the end of war."

In another parallel between Afghanistan and Chechnya, support for the concept of a strict Islamic state gained momentum because of human rights violations.

The Taliban was originally hailed for restoring order to a chaotic, lawless nation. In Chechnya, human rights violations by Russian soldiers -- random detentions, arbitrary killings and routine trade in imprisoned Chechens and their dead bodies -- have pushed many ordinary Chechens into the arms of the extremists.

Residents not prone to political activity have been transformed into guerrilla warriors seeking to protect their families from the violence and humiliation that have become emblematic of Moscow's campaign there.

For years, Russia has endured condemnation by Western nations for its heavy- handed tactics in Chechnya. But the Kremlin was handed a public relations windfall by the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11. Finally, it could point to the destructive capabilities of Islamic extremist groups in a shared international context.

Eager to compare its prickly domestic conflict with the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan, Russia now argues that both Chechnya and Afghanistan are similar fronts in the same campaign -- the fight to eradicate Islamic extremists worldwide.

The Russian government has repeatedly said that the Taliban was exporting terrorists to Chechnya from training camps in Afghanistan. Moscow also said one of Chechnya's most influential rebels, the Saudi- born commander who goes by the name Khattab, was sponsored by suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

In the past, the West has dismissed these allegations. But after President Vladimir Putin pledged to back U.S.-led strikes on suspected terrorist havens in Afghanistan, the Bush administration has signaled that it is ready to consider the Kremlin's claims that the rebels in Chechnya are terrorists with close ties to bin Laden.

Two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush said, "We do believe there's some al Qaeda folks in Chechnya." Washington also called on Chechen separatists to "cut all contact with international terrorist groups."

More recently, the United States promised to help Russia cut off Chechen separatists from their foreign suppliers. U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow told reporters on Monday that this applied to all mercenaries fighting against Russian troops in Chechnya -- and particularly Khattab.

Khattab fought in Afghanistan alongside bin Laden against the Soviet army, which occupied the country for a decade, from 1979 to 1989.

Russia says Khattab set up al Qaeda-type training camps in Chechnya, where he trained terrorists whose mission was to launch bomb attacks on Russian cities, including Moscow, in 2000.

A court in Stavropol, 750 miles south of Moscow, convicted five men last week of plotting the attacks and sentenced them to between nine and 15 years in prison.

At the moment, Khattab is believed to be in charge of the al Qaeda fighters trapped in the besieged Afghan city of Kunduz. News that he may be facing his last stand there has cheered the Russian military.