«Chechen» fighters of Russian armyRuslan Isayev, North Caucasus – Recently, Chechnya has seen fights not only between Russian troops and Chechen guerillas, but also between Chechen homeguard members (local mercenaries serving in the Russian army), policemen and Russian servicemen. One of the Itumkalinski district administration members told me that a few days ago a group of masked people driving five UAZ cars and shouting “Allahu Akbar” burst into the centre of the village, encircled the police department with ten local policemen inside, and started to fire against it, having completely ignored the neighbouring military commandment building with Russian soldiers. Chechen homeguard members came to the place encircling the “fighters” and suggesting that they should give up. In the meantime, two MI-24 helicopters appeared above launching fire against the homeguard. Then, local policemen captured one of the “fighters” whose identity raised surprise - his identity card read colonel of the Central Intelligence Department (GRU) of the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation. Knowing that the “fighters” are Russian soldiers, the homeguard commander connected with the district commandment through radio transmitter, threatening he would kill the colonel if the helicopters did not halt fighting. Only then the aircraft were called back. Chechen policemen and the commandment members found out that the captured colonel commanded the group of “fighters” whose order was to playact the attack against the police department, capture a few significant villagers and raise tension and destabilisation in the district. The colonel added there are several such special groups, whose members speak Chechen and are familiar with Chechen habits, operating in the Chechen Republic. Two Russian soldiers wearing a false beard have reportedly been killed in a similar attack in Gudermes, east of Grozny. In addition, the district centre Vedeno policemen captured a few federal soldiers who fired against the police department claiming that they should check vigilance and devotion of Chechen policemen to Russian authorities. It has been alleged many times that Chechen fighters disguise themselves as Russian soldiers and terrorise civilians. As reports say, during recent operations against Russian detachments located within the precincts of settlements in Achkhoi-Martan, Chechen fighters spoke Russian in order to intimidate those local people who risked their lives going out of their houses to watch the ongoing events. Besides, Chechen policemen often speak Russian when setting out for their operations. As a rule, they are masked in order to resemble Russian servicemen. |
