NAZRAN, Russia, Dec 25 (AFP) - Born in the 19th century, Nabits Kornukayeva had every chance of reaching the 21st until Russian troops captured her village and went on an orgy of pillaging, looting and murder.
Russian artillery bombardment and arm-twisting by local elders had, by late November, forced the mujahideen out of Alkhan-Yurt, a key village defending the southwestern approaches to the Chechen capital Grozny.
But instead of a peace of sorts the village was subjected to a two-week reign of terror in early December that carried on despite warnings from a Western human rights group to local Russian commander, Gen.Vladimir Shamanov.
Nabits was still clutching her walking stick when a local woman called Sarah found the body of the pensioner, aged more than 100 years, and that of her 65-year-old son Arbi, on Dec. 4.
An armored personnel carrier had smashed down the gates of their home, and Russian troops had cut short their feeble protests with a volley of bullets to the chest. Nabits' home was then plundered and torched.
The brutal murders, which took place well after the vicious battle for Alkhan-Yurt had ended, cannot be dismissed as an isolated incident but formed part of a wider pattern of murderous excess by drunken infantrymen.
Soldiers hacked off the head of 38-year-old Andi Altimirov and left it at his home, where human rights workers photographed it four days ago, along with the bodies of two other civilians shot by troops looting their homes.
Villagers who have fled Alkhan-Yurt have told of a Russian assault on their settlement of almost Medieval brutality: relentless bombardment of non-combatants followed by wholesale looting and random killings by drunken, victorious troops.
Human Rights Watch researcher Peter Bouckaert has compiled a chilling dossier of witnesses accounts confirming at least 12 summary executions: some victims had their throats cut, while others had their ears sliced off by soldiers looking for macabre trophies.
Some villagers said that 40-50 extra-judicial murders were carried out in the settlement.
The reported recall of the Western front commander Gen. Shamanov, vigorously denied in Moscow, has highlighted anecdotal evidence that the atrocities in Alkhan-Yurt were carried out with the knowledge of senior Russian commanders.
One witness account speaks of a Russian intelligence officer reprimanding looters, only to be told to "get stuffed, we've been given the village for a week." Refugees interviewed by the media recounted similar exchanges.
Many of the killings were carried out by soldiers who had been bingeing on alcohol. Some were so drunk they could barely stand.
Villagers say the worst offenders were not raw recruits but experienced mercenaries hired by federal forces to spearhead the bloody street-fighting which preceded Alkhan-Yurt's capture and which some reports say cost 250 Russian lives.
Stung by reports of atrocities, Moscow sent its pointman on Chechnya, Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Koshman, to the village to investigate.
An amateur video captured an appalled Koshman on film angrily upbraiding army officers telling them: "You'll be held personally responsible for this, you will be very sorry."
A furious Koshman said in footage seen by the BBC: "I've never seen anything like it anywhere in Chechnya."
At one stage during the visit, a Russian soldier unaware of Koshman's identity threatened to kill the deputy premier until a Russian general stepped in and put the private on a charge.
BBC journalists were taken into the village by Malik Saidulayev, a millionaire Chechen businessman who is pro-Moscow and anti-Islam. But he was hurt because he is from Alkhan-Yurt.
Sources say Saidulayev found federal soldiers sitting among an Aladdin's cave of stolen televisions, video recorders and furniture, drinking out of golden goblets stolen from his home, which was among those looted.
Human Rights Watch is calling for an independent international probe into the outrage and for Western media to be given full access to the zone to gather testimony.
Although 18 soldiers have been detained by the Russian authorities following reports of atrocities in Alkhan-Yurt, few expect Moscow's own investigation into war crimes to lead to convictions.
