Tuesday, 27 July 2004

OFFICIAL: CHECHEN WARLORD VIDEO LOOKS REAL

Published in News Digest

By empty (7/27/2004 issue of the CACI Analyst)

A top security official Tuesday said a videotape showing prominent Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev looting an arsenal after last month\'s insurgent attacks in Ingushetia appeared authentic. A second expert said testimony from captured rebel suspects indicated that Basayev led the June 21 raid in which 90 people died. The video was posted to a pro-rebel Web site on Monday and showed Basayev and about a dozen other camouflage-clad men pulling weapons and ammunition boxes off shelves in a building that Basayev said on the tape was an Interior Ministry arsenal in Ingushetia.
A top security official Tuesday said a videotape showing prominent Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev looting an arsenal after last month\'s insurgent attacks in Ingushetia appeared authentic. A second expert said testimony from captured rebel suspects indicated that Basayev led the June 21 raid in which 90 people died. The video was posted to a pro-rebel Web site on Monday and showed Basayev and about a dozen other camouflage-clad men pulling weapons and ammunition boxes off shelves in a building that Basayev said on the tape was an Interior Ministry arsenal in Ingushetia. Hundreds of fighters mounted the series of coordinated attacks on police posts in Ingushetia on the night of June 21. The ease with which the attacks were carried out, underscored Russian forces\' weaknesses in the region and raised fears that rebels from neighboring Chechnya, who have been fighting Russian forces for nearly five years, aimed to take the war to other regions. The poor-quality black-and-white video does not show direct evidence that the building is an Interior Ministry arsenal or that it was shot on the night of the attacks. Nonetheless, Sergei Koryakov, director of the Federal Security Service in Ingushetia, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying proved details \"of events that occurred.\" Later, Interfax quoted Sergei Fridinsky, the top prosecutor in southwestern Russia, as saying that \"it follows from testimony of detainees that Basayev led the bandit attack.\" However, the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Ingushetia\'s Acting Interior Minister Beslan Khamkhoyev as saying the videotape could have been doctored. In the tape, Basayev claims that 570 Chechen and Ingush fighters took part in the operation and seized some 700 automatic weapons, 800 pistols and 1 million rounds of ammunition. \"I express thanks to the authorities for keeping this ordnance in such good condition,\" Basayev said on the tape. It showed armed, masked men milling around Basayev and holding up a black banner with Arabic lettering. Russian authorities say that Chechen fighters, many of them adherents of the Wahhabi branch of Islam, receive support from foreign terrorist cells. (AP)
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The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.

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