Chechen rebels deny reports by Russian military command about combats in Gudermes district

Spokesman for the regional headquarters on the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus Colonel Ilya Shabalkin reported on April 14 that a part of the rebel group that had killed policemen and civilians in the Gudermes district the day before was destroyed in bombing attacks by federal forces.

In the evening of the same day, the On-line Information Department of the Chechen separatist site Kavkaz Center published extracts from a short interview given to Kavkaz Center by a representative of the State Defense Committee - Majlisul Shura of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (a body of separatists' military command). He was quoted as saying:

"All these reports and statements are false. There is no pursuit, and no encirclement. And Mojaheds are taking no losses. They've been simply conducting indiscriminate bombing from airplanes and helicopters since yesterday."

Another report by Kavkaz Center's On-line Information Department presents the following comments on Shabalkin's statement concerning the involvement of the rebel group that attacked Kadyrov's policemen in Ishkhoy-Yurt in the murder of nine Duba-Yurt residents:

"Shabalkin hasn't explained how the Chechen fighters have managed to move from one village to the other so quickly, overpassing 70-80 kilometers of the territory full of forces, killing nine people, attacking Ishkhoy-Yurt, destroying about a dozen of Kadyrov's people there, outstripping pursuers and in the end finding themselves far in the mountains of the Vedeno district, where, according to other reports from Khankala, they are already fighting with Yamadayev's battalion."

The Gazeta.ru Internet media also points to contradictions in the reports by the Russian military command

"The military assert they know who leads the bandits in spite of the fact that no member of the gang that attacked Ishkhoy-Yurt has been captured."

Editors note: See also the articles "Russian military command: murderers of 9 Duba-Yurt residents established", "Seven policemen killed in Chechnya".