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Russia
Boasts Over Death of Top Chechen Commander
MOSCOW, June 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Russia said Monday it killed a top Chechen separatist leader that Moscow claims was responsible for killing dozens of people and for a wave of hostage takings during the 20-month long Chechen war.
A Chechen-run Internet site confirmed Monday the death of field commander, Arbi Barayev, 28, calling him a "martyr" who fell with his troops during six days of fighting in his native village of Alkhan-Kala, on the southwestern outskirts of the Chechen capital Grozny, news agencies reported.
Moscow has hailed his death as a major success and proof that it is winning the war.
The Kremlin's top spokesman on the Chechen war, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, expressed his happiness for the Chechen Commander's assassination, calling it "a great success," the French news agency, AFP, reported.
"He was one of the most active fighters, and it will be tough for them to compensate for the loss," commented Yastrzhembsky triumphantly. The senior Russian commander in Chechnya could hardly hide his delight, Western news agencies reported.
The federal command had come under increasing pressure for failing to nab any of the senior resistance activist field commanders nearly two years into the second Chechen war, while losing at least 3,000 troops - although a committee of soldiers' mothers estimates the true figure is three times higher.
Barayev's death means that his fellow activist leaders, Shamil Basayev and Khattab, were next, warned the acting Russian commander in Chechnya, General Vladimir Moltenskoi.
"We have been carrying out the operation in Alkhan-Kala for six days," Moltenskoi told Russian television.
"As a result, Arbi Barayev's group has been destroyed."
"In all, we killed 18 Chechen fighters. Unfortunately, two of our soldiers were wounded," he said.
However, Yastrzhembsky's office said one Russian soldier was also killed in the battles.
"At its most numerous, (Barayev's) group numbered 300 people," said Moltenskoi. "He stands accused of killing 170 people."
The Russian army accuses Barayev of taking four Westerners - three British nationals and a New Zealander, who were developing a telephone system for Chechnya - hostage in 1998.
Military analysts see that Barayev's death is not an important event because "it came too late," the French news agency, AFP, reported.
"He should have been killed two years ago," said independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.
"Now, a new generation of fighters has grown up who will be even more active, who are very young and who have very strong anti-Russian sentiments. The Chechen resistance is now supported by the people," he added.
Meanwhile, on Chechnya's western border, in Ingushetia, a hunger strike, launched two weeks ago by Chechen refugees to demand the end of the war in their homeland, gained momentum Monday as more than 200 Chechens warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that they were ready to die. Eighty-two refugees in the region were already refusing food.
"We would prefer to die of hunger rather than be killed by Russian troops," the protesters said in a statement.
The refugees were urging Putin to open direct talks with separatist leaders, as about 1,000 others supported them in a demonstration in the border town of Sleptsovskaya.
They called for "an immediate halt to the war" and negotiations between Moscow and Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.
Roughly fifteen Chechen refugees launched the strike earlier this month, at the Sputnik camp, not far from Sleptsovskaya.
It is the first Chechen hunger strike on such a scale since Russia sent troops into the mainly Muslim republic on October 1, 1999, in an attempt to crush a separatist rebellion.
The Russian authorities have so far ruled out any prospect of negotiations with Maskhadov, claiming the war was an "anti-terrorist" campaign.
The Chechen freedom fighters have been struggling for independence for the Muslim region for centuries.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the war left a third of Chechnya's population - more than 260,000 people - displaced within Chechnya, and another 170,000 are living in difficult circumstances in neighboring Ingushetia.
Russia has offered a million-dollar reward for the capture of separatist Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, and the two main Chechen military leaders, Shamil Basayev and Khattab, who could face capital punishment.
The death penalty is still enforced in Russia, though a moratorium has been applied since 1996, following Russia's admission to the Council of Europe. But last month, Justice Minister Yury Chaika called for the freeze to be suspended in the case of terrorist actions.
Some Russian officials have also admitted that allegations of abuses by federal troops serving in the war torn republic continued to be made, although less often since the troops began to withdraw.
Of the 138 complaints against Russian soldiers in Chechnya, 24 cases of abuse have gone to trial, and 11 troops have been punished with various sentences, Chechnya's military prosecutor Mikhail Kislitsyn said.
The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe and other international rights groups have repeatedly called for the Russian authorities to prosecute federal troops charged with abuses in Chechnya since the beginning of the 20-month struggle.
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