#39 - JRL 2007-32 - JRL Home
Russian Minister Upbeat About Anti-separatist Performance

MOSCOW. Feb 8 (Interfax) - Last year saw the most significant achievements in Russia's action against the Chechen separatist movement since Moscow moved its troops into Chechnya in autumn 1999, Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in an interview to appear in Friday's issue of the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper, A total of 169 militants, including 34 group leaders and alleged foreign mercenaries, were killed in 2006, he said..

"Among them were (warlord) Shamil Basayev, Abdulkhalim Saidullayev, the so-called president of Ichkeria (the separatist name for Chechnya), Khadisov, leader of a bandit group that was active in the eastern part of the republic, Rasulov, one of the ideologists of religious extremism in Dagestan (a Russian republic bordering Chechnya), and others," Nurgaliyev said.

He added that those people had largely shaped the separatist movement's strategy.

A serious blow was also dealt to the international system of financing the Chechen separatists, the minister said.

For instance, "Abu Haws, emissary of Al Qaeda and the chief financial manager for the terrorists in the North Caucasus, was liquidated," he said.

More than 1,000 militants were arrested in 2006, "thousands of pieces of weapons and ammunition and more than three tonnes of explosives, were seized, 215 bandit bases and 929 weapon caches were destroyed." Nurgaliyev said.

"However, despite such positive dynamics, it is too early to relax, he said.

Nurgaliyev said 2003 had been this period's hardest year for Russia -561 acts of violence were committed. "It has been possible to stabilize the situation," he said.