Aslan Maskhadov plans to set up "Independent Mountainous Ichkeria"

Leader of Chechen extremists Aslan Maskhadov, whose armed gangs are unable to render serious resistance to federal forces, expressed intention to set up the so-called Independent Mountainous Ichkeria in southern Chechnya, a spokesman of the regional headquarters on the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus Colonel Ilya Shabalkin reported on Sunday.

"Maskhadov's idea is being advertised, above all abroad, by his envoys. Former warlord Khozhakhmed Nukhayev is one of them. He advertises this idea in every convenient case at various human rights assemblies," the colonel noted.

Press service head of the United Army Group in the North Caucasus Vassily Panchenkov reported that for this purpose gunmen build their bases and caches in mountainous Chechnya. He noted that federals uncovered and destroyed ten bases and caches of gunmen over the past two days alone. "The biggest of them were uncovered near the villages of Komsomolskoye, Mairtup, Shatoi, Vedeno and Benoi," Panchenkov noted.

Shabalkin stressed that gunmen translate into life an idea of creating the "Independent Mountainous Ichkeria" by methods to which they are accustomed: they rob and pillage local population, from whom they wrest foodstuffs, warm clothing so as to winter the cold period in mountainous areas of Chechnya.

"On Saturday, Maskhadov followers attacked local residents in the village of Tazbichi, the Itum-Kali district, grabbing foodstuffs and warm clothing from them," the spokesman reported.