NO LETUP IN GUERRILLA ATTACKS

A source in the Kadyrov administration told the Associated Press on August 16 that some fifteen federal soldiers had been killed and another forty wounded in attacks by separatist guerrillas over the previous twenty-four hours. In one gun battle, the rebels raided a military headquarters in the town of Samashki in western Chechnya. (According to the website Gazeta.ru, the attacking force numbered some fifty or more–considerably larger than the small bands that have mounted most raids and ambushes this summer.) Other attacks included ambushes near Vedeno in the southern highlands and near Gudermes east of Grozny.

The website Gazeta.ru also reported that the rebels had used not only small arms, but artillery, in an attack in the Achkhoi-Martan district in western Chechnya.

The news agency Interfax reported on August 18 that a police officer in the Kadyrov administration was killed by unknown attackers in the Urus-Martan district southwest of Grozny. Sources in the Chechen Interior Ministry told Interfax that the rebel guerrillas have in recent days mounted a full-scale “hunt” for policemen in the Moscow-supported administration. According to Ruslan Atsaev, the Interior Ministry’s press secretary, more than ninety of its policemen have been killed so far this year.