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Christus Rex Information Service
MOSCOW (Jul 19, 1996 1:00 p.m. EDT) -- Kremlin officials called the apparent return of a Chechen commander once reported dead a "publicity stunt" and warned Friday that he could rally rebel fighters for new attacks on Russian troops.
Salman Raduyev apparently resurfaced Thursday in Chechnya. He claimed former rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev is alive, despite reports he, too, was killed.
The man claiming to be Raduyev told reporters Thursday that Chechen rebels carried out two bus bombings in Moscow last week that wounded 33 people. Rebel leaders have vehemently denied involvement.
Raduyev's apparent reappearance triggered new fears in Russia of separatist attacks. The identity of the man claiming to be Raduyev, however, was in some doubt -- he sounded just like the rebel commander but looked different.
Wearing dark glasses and with a deep scar near his eye, he explained he had lost an eye and had plastic surgery after being shot by Russian troops on March 3.
Russian media, citing military sources, reported that Raduyev had died of head wounds suffered in a shootout with fellow rebels. The rebels denied it, but Raduyev had not been seen in public since.
Russian officials said Friday they were convinced the man was Raduyev, and the Federal Security Service denied Friday that it ever had declared him or Dudayev dead.
Russian officials, rebel commanders and Dudayev's wife all said the separatist leader was killed in an April 21 air raid in Chechnya. Dudayev's burial place, however, has never been disclosed.
Dudayev's wife, Alla, reportedly has vanished from her home near Moscow, fueling speculation that Dudayev is alive and hiding abroad.
Sergei Stepashin, secretary of the Kremlin's committee on Chechnya, said Friday he was absolutely sure that Dudayev is dead and said the claim to the contrary is "Raduyev's attempt at a publicity stunt."
"If they believe Dzhokhar is alive and ... will make a comeback, they'll fight against the so-called non-believers," Stepashin said.
Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov said Raduyev's reappearance "could result in a stepping up of terrorism."
In Moscow, the lower house of parliament passed a resolution by a vote of 272-4 on Friday calling on President Boris Yeltsin to hold televised talks between the rebels and his Security Council.
The head of the council, Alexander Lebed, is expected to visit Chechnya before the end of the month.
Meanwhile, Yeltsin's envoy in Chechnya, Oleg Lobov, told parliament that federal forces have managed to "destroy the basic military potential" of the rebels and that Chechnya was now prepared to "fully integrate" into Russia.
Lobov said, however, that about 40 separatist units numbering 15 to 25 fighters each remained active in Chechnya in addition to lone guerrillas and "criminal elements" numbering about 3,000.
The man who called himself Raduyev said Thursday he had just returned to Chechnya after receiving medical treatment in Germany. German officials were unable to rule out that he had stayed in Germany.
The Izvestia daily, citing rebel commanders, reported that Raduyev had been treated in an unspecified Middle East country.
Raduyev, a 28-year-old relative of Dudayev, led a Jan. 9 hostage-taking raid in the Russian republic of Dagestan, seizing dozens of hostages before negotiating safe passage back to Chechnya.
More than 30,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since Yeltsin sent troops into Chechnya in December 1994 to crush its bid for independence.
SOMEWHERE IN CHECHNYA, Russia (Jul 19, 1996 0:41 a.m. EDT) - Chechen guerrilla commander Salman Raduyev, reported to have been killed in March, resurfaced to stun Moscow with a claim that former rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev was also alive and sought revenge.
"I swear to Allah that Dzhokhar Dudayev is alive," Raduyev told a news conference at a secret location in Chechnya on Thursday. "I swear to Allah," he repeated.
His assertion could not be independently confirmed, but nor was Dudayev's reported death in a Russian rocket attack on April 20.
Raduyev, who defied the Russian army after a hostage-taking raid in the southern region of Dagestan in January, said Dudayev was in a "safe place" but in grave condition.
Raduyev, whose identity was confirmed by journalists who knew him well, was scarcely recognisable except for his familiar voice. He said his face had been altered by plastic surgery in Germany after being destroyed by a Russian sniper's bullet.
He said Dudayev, replaced as rebel leader after his reported death by Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, had ordered an all-out war against Russia to avenge the attempt on his life.
"I got an order from him which I will carry out at any price. Russia will yet pay for this attack," he said.
Other Chechen rebels and relatives reported at the time that Dudayev had been killed and his death was widely accepted in Moscow. But his burial at an undisclosed location was shrouded in secrecy and many Chechens refused to believe he had died.
Raduyev said Dudayev's condition was so bad that it might be worse than that of General Anatoly Romanov, Russia's former top commander in Chechnya, who is in a deep coma in hospital after his car was blown up in the regional capital Grozny in October.
Raduyev's "Lone Wolf" group of rebels took hundreds of hostages in the southern Russian town of Kizlyar in January and then, after a siege of over a week, escaped with some of the hostages from the nearby village of Pervomaiskoye.
His reappearance posed a new threat for Moscow, whether or not Dudayev is alive, since he challenged Yandarbiyev's authority and raised the prospect of rival uncontrolled rebel groups striking out wildly at Russia.
He accused Yandarbiyev of treason for agreeing a ceasefire with President Boris Yeltsin in May and insisted that he must denounce the deal, although fresh fighting has effectively scuppered the truce.
Raduyev said he was ready to launch "a war without rules" against Russia that could even include chemical warfare.
He said he had acquired Stinger surface-to-air missiles -- the U.S.-made weapon that helped Afghan mujahideen oust Soviet forces in the 1980s -- and would shortly use them against Russian warplanes bombing Chechnya.
He said his guerrillas would establish "an atmosphere of terror" in Russian cities and cripple the country's transport network, especially vulnerable railway lines.
Another rebel field commander told Reuter correspondent Alastair Macdonald that the separatists had drawn up plans to attack Russian economic targets and could even strike at nuclear plants if Moscow failed to halt its latest attacks in Chechnya.
Rebel leaders said earlier they had agreed to give the peace process another chance and to resist full-scale warfare in retaliation for the Russian offensive.
But the rebel field commander, who asked to be identified only as Islam, said retaliatory strikes had already been prepared. "Now Russia must weep," he said.
MOSCOW - A man claiming to be a Chechen commander who was reported dead by the Russians has surfaced, saying separatist rebels were responsible for two recent bus bombings in Moscow.
He also claimed that top rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev is alive and hospitalized at an undisclosed location, contrary to reports he was killed in a Russian air raid.
The apparent reappearance Thursday of Salman Raduyev and claims of Dudayev's survival have raised questions about a split in the rebel leadership.
Kremlin officials said Friday they are "100% certain" that Dudayev was dead and called Raduyev's claim an attempt to rally rebel fighters for new attacks on Russian troops.
The man identifying himself as Raduyev said at a news conference in Chechnya that he had just returned to the breakaway republic after undergoing medical treatment.
Russian media, citing military sources, reported in March that he had died of head wounds suffered in a shootout with fellow rebels. The rebels denied it, but Raduyev has not been seen in public since.
Associated Press Television footage of the news conference outside the eastern Chechen town of Gudermes showed a man who sounded just like Raduyev but looked substantially different from the commander who met with the press earlier this year.
Wearing dark glasses and with a deep scar near his eye, he explained he had lost an eye and had to have plastic surgery as a result of his injuries, which he said resulted from being shot by Russian troops on March 3.
The man claiming to be Raduyev said the two Moscow bus bombings that wounded 33 people last week were staged by Chechen rebels, the first one "in honor of my return." Rebel leaders have vehemently denied involvement.
The man also claimed Dudayev survived.
"I swear by Allah that Dzhokhar Dudayev is alive," he said. "I received an order from him that I will fulfill at all cost and Russia will yet pay for their assassination attempt."
Russian officials, rebel leaders and Dudayev's wife all said the separatist leader was killed in an April 21 air raid in Chechnya. Dudayev's burial place, however, has never been disclosed.
Russian Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov said that Raduyev's reappearance "could result in a stepping up of terrorism."
In the Chechen capital of Grozny, a spokesman for the pro-Moscow Chechen government, Ruslan Martagov, said the apparent resurfacing of Raduyev shows a split in the rebel leadership, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Raduyev's statements that Dudayev is alive and that rebels were responsible for the Moscow attacks contradict claims by other rebel leaders.
Raduyev, a 28-year-old relative of Dudayev, led a Jan. 9 hostage-taking raid in the Russian republic of Dagestan, seizing dozens of hostages before negotiating safe passage back to Chechnya. Russian forces stopped his guerrillas and dozens of hostages at the border village of Pervomayskaya, setting off clashes that killed dozens of people.
The man claiming to be Raduyev said Thursday he had received medical treatment in Germany. But a German Foreign Ministry official said that was unlikely.
Russia's Izvestia newspaper, citing rebel military leaders, reported that Raduyev had been treated in an unspecified Middle Eastern country.
By The Associated Press
IN SOUTHERN CHECHNYA, Russia (Jul 19, 1996 0:41 a.m. EDT) - Abu Abdullah is a long way from home in Russia's rebel province of Chechnya but the Algerian believes it will bring him closer to his God.
If the Russian army catches up with him, he may get very close indeed since Moscow's troops, frustrated by 19 months of bloody conflict in the Caucasus, take a dim view of foreign "mercenaries" on their soil and have itchy trigger fingers.
"I am ready to die for Islam," the earnest young man, encountered in a rebel mountain strongholds this week, explained in a broken mixture of French and Russian.
"Those Russian pigs only want war. I'm here to fight for Allah, not for money," he said, frowning over his scanty black beard. "I've seen Afghanistan, Algeria. Chechnya is part of the same jihad (holy war)."
His vision is one that particularly worries Russia, which has considerable Moslem minorities living on its southern borders. It fears that they also might try to secede if it grants Chechen demands for independence.
Seven decades of communism weakened Islam's grip on the Caucasus and, while some rebel leaders invoke a jihad (holy war) against Moscow, many fighters are inspired more by centuries-old grudges against Russia than by religious fanaticism.
Yet, whether for reasons of idealism or pragmatism, the pan-Islamic idea is an important one for the guerrillas.
Russia accuses the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, also mainly Moslem, of providing the transit area for Chechen rebel supplies. Other Islamic states in the Middle East are thought to provide assistance, officially or otherwise.
Guerrillas have also come into the region, although no reliable figures exist on how many. There are accounts of Afghan mujahideen, blooded in nine years of mountain warfare against Soviet troops, fighting their old enemies in Chechnya.
Algerians, too, fighting to establish an Islamic state in their own country, are mentioned, though Russian media reports have been nothing if not comprehensive in listing the nationalities of foreign mercenaries.
Lithuanians and Scotsmen have been among the latest groups to feature in articles, quoting Russian intelligence sources, on outside help for the Chechens.
But Moslem countries are the best represented. Elsewhere in the southern mountains, reporters came across a second Arab fighter, his dark skin standing out among his Chechen comrades.
Flicking back his flowing black hair with his Kalashnikov, the man refused to give his name but said he was from Jordan and had been in Chechnya for 15 months.
In the long run, however, the contribution of such Moslem foreigners may be less in terms of firepower as in ideas.
Abu Abdullah, who would not say exactly where he came from although he had lived in the French cities of Nimes and Marseille, said he was teaching Arabic and knowledge of the Koran to Chechens who were largely ignorant of their religion.
With the 19-month war looking likely to drag on for a long time yet, it seemed as if every child passed on the mountain roads, some barely old enough to speak, could now raise a fist and shout "Allahu Akbar!" (God is Great).
QARYOUT, West Bank (Jul 19, 1996 12:11 p.m. EDT) - Jewish settlers broke the nose of a Palestinian woman and clubbed two foreign news cameramen Friday in clashes with Arabs protesting land seizures in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, witnesses said.
At least one settler wildly fired his Uzi sub-machinegun in the air but wounded no one, Palestinian witnesses said.
They said the clash began when about 200 Arabs carrying banners marched onto land they said settlers had taken from Qaryout village near Shilo Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank.
They said the Palestinians began pulling down a fence and set fire to dry brush. Settlers armed with clubs and sub- machineguns arrived and began stoning and clubbing the Palestinians who threw stones in turn at the settlers.
"Since this new Likud government, these settlers feel empowered. This land is our life. If they keep this up, our lives will be meaningless," said protester Mushtaq Mohammed, referring to the May 29 election of hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A member of the Palestinian self-rule authority cabinet, Imad al-Falouji, said settlers stoned his car in the same area as soldiers looked on without intervening.
Palestinians said soldiers tried to disperse them with teargas but did nothing to the settlers. An army spokeswoman said soldiers tried to separate the two sides.
"Local residents began uprooting the fence and saplings. Shilo residents arrived and broke a number of car windows. The two sides exchanged blows. An army force in the area tried to separate them," the spokewoman said.
At one point a settler clubbed WTN television cameraman Abdel-Rahman Khabisa in the legs and then, as Khabisa turned to walk away, a settler clubbed him on the back of the head. He fell to the ground. Settlers also clubbed Associated Press cameraman Abdel-Rahim Qusini in the back.
Both men were taken to a hospital in Israel.
Reuters television filmed the clubbing of Khabisa as well as men carrying Fatmeh al-Boom, a 76-year-old Palestinian woman, from the scene as she clutched her nose streaming with blood. The men said settlers had beaten Boom. Hospital officials in Nablus later said Boom's nose was broken.
The settlers smashed the windscreens and rear windows of 14 cars owned by Arabs, Palestinians said.
Palestinians said the settlers were stealing land from Qaryout village, fencing off about 375 acres.
Asked why the Palestinians had set fire to one of the fields, Khamis al-Hamad, one of the demonstrators, said dead underbrush was burned every summer.
He added: "It shows this is their property."
About 130,000 Jews live in settlements scattered among the two million Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip occupied by Israel in 1967.
Some of the territory has been handed over by Israel to Palestinian self-rule since 1994 under an interim peace deal.
The area of Friday's unrest is still under Israeli control.
Netanyahu, who opposes trading occupied land for peace, has said Israelis have the right to settle anywhere in the occupied lands.
The previous government, while expanding settlements around Jerusalem, had frozen new settlement building and the expansion of peripheral settlements.
ULAN BATOR, Mongolia (Jul 19, 1996 11:47 a.m. EDT) - Mongolia's parliament Friday elected M. Enkhsaikhan as prime minister, the first democrat to run the North Asian country after 75 years of rule by communists and their heirs.
Enkhsaikhan, 41, who did not run in the June 30 election, was swept into the premiership by a vote of 49 to 24.
He began his term pledging to attract foreign investment and promising faster privatisation and a broad-basing of exports to reduce the country's vulnerability to global price fluctuations.
Outgoing Prime Minister P. Jasrai of the formerly communist Mongolian Revolutionary People's Party (MPRP) handed Enkhsaikhan the blue sash of office, and Enkhsaikhan drank from a silver cup filled with fermented mare's milk to seal his inauguration.
Enkhsaikhan leads the Democratic Union Coalition that won 50 seats in the 76-seat parliament, or Great Hural. The MPRP has 25 seats and a tiny independent party one seat.
Enkhsaikhan was chosen prime minister only after the MPRP returned to parliament. Its MPs had walked out of Thursday's opening session to press their demand for the post of deputy speaker.
The MPRP returned to Parliament after reaching a compromise with the new government that postponed the vote for the deputy speaker until after the prime minister was elected.
Enkhsaikhan, born into Mongolia's communist elite and the son of a former deputy minister of education, is an economist by training who has long advocated more democracy and the need for more rapid market reforms and privatization.
He was one of just six democrats elected to parliament in 1992 but resigned to take charge of the president's office in 1993 after the election of President Punsalmaagiin Ochirbat.
He united the Social Democratic Party and the National Democratic Party for the June 30 poll. They had contested the 1992 elections separately and won just six seats to 70 for MPRP.
The democratic coalition has promised the MPRP control of the ethics and finance committees and has said it would consider expanding the National Security Council to give the opposition a seat. The council comprises the president, prime minister and parliament speaker.
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