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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (39145)	3/9/2004 3:48:02 PM
From: lurqer	Respond to of 89467

War on terror - Russian style. Think Bush is taking notes? Chechnya's top rebel leader may surrender soon: pro-Moscow official GROZNY, Russia : Chechnya's pro-Moscow government has hinted that top rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov may soon surrender amid charges that authorities forced another top separatist to lay down arms by kidnapping and threatening his family. "I think it's 70 percent possible that within a week or two Maskhadov will surrender," Ramzan Kadyrov, who heads the security service for his father, pro-Moscow Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, said on local television Monday. But a Maskhadov spokesman called the suggestion "absurd." "That is an absurd statement," Akhmed Zakayev told AFP from London, where he has been granted political asylum. "It is absolutely out of the question and is pure and simple propaganda on the part of Kadyrov and his team." Maskhadov was elected Chechnya's president in 1997, after the Caucasus republic won its first war against Moscow. Before the start of the second war in October 1999, the Kremlin branded him a "terrorist" and refused to negotiate with him. He is currently thought to be hiding out somewhere in the mountains that hug Chechnya's southern border. Kadyrov's comments came amid charges that Magomed Khambiyev, Chechnya's former defense minister and a Maskhadov ally, surrendered on Monday after numerous members of his family were kidnapped by Russian and pro-Kadyrov forces. "Russian secret services... had selectively kidnapped 16 relatives" of Khambiyev throughout Chechnya, said a rebel statement quoted by several rebel websites. "Some time later, authorities said that those detained would be sentenced to death unless" Khambiyev and his brother Umar, a former health minister, surrendered, the statement said. Umar Khambiyev is currently in France, where a group called the Chechen Committee also decried the detentions. Magomed's surrender "was staged by Kadyrovtsy" (as pro-Kadyrov forces are known), "who took hostages... including women," Umar Khambiyev told AFP by telephone. "As a brother, I am proud of his actions, he sacrificed himself," he said. "But I regret that he has created a precedent, giving into Russian terrorism." The press office of Chechnya's interior ministry confirmed to AFP that 16 relatives of Khambiyev had been detained recently as part of operations looking for rebels. Among those detained were Khambiyev's 22-year-old cousin Aslanbek, a medical student who was taken by armed men from Grozny's university on March 1. His brother Shita, also a medical student, was taken from his apartment on the same day. After a week of student protests, Aslanbek was released, though Shita remains missing. Although Akhmad Kadyrov called Khambiyev's surrender, which came less than a week before Russia's presidential elections, a major blow to the Chechen resistance, both Umar Khambiyev and Zakayev denied it had any bearing. "The resistance will not be affected, it is not just made up of Khambiyevs," Umar Khambiyev said. Zakayev said that Khambiyev had not been active in the separatist movement for at least two years and dismissed the surrender as a publicity stunt on the eve of Putin's reelection bid. "This is all part of a pre-election campaign on the part of Putin and his entourage," he said. Rights groups in Chechnya charge that the forces of Kadyrov, a former rebel who switched to Moscow's side at the start of the second Chechen war and was elected president in a disputed poll last October, are responsible for many of the kidnappings in the restive Caucasus republic. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched the current Russo-Chechen war, stands for reelection on March 14 and is expected to easily sweep the poll. channelnewsasia.com lurqer