North Caucasus - The Russian military and other power structures launched a new "mopping-up operation" in Argun, the third largest Chechen town, where such operations are underway regularly.

Russian armoured vehicles entered the town on Jan 23, destroying the house of the Davliyev family in the Sakhzavodskaya street, allegedly in revenge for the activities of 22-year-old Rasul Davliyev, who offered armed resistance to Russian soldiers on December 13, 2001. Reportedly, he had killed and injured about twenty federal soldiers in the two-hour fight before he sustained a fatal injury.

Searches and checks were conducted also near to the industrial part of Argun where soldiers detained seventeen people, taking them for a so called filtration procedure in the local communite centre. One of the detainees is a 62-year- old man. Eye-witnesses claim he became suspected because he did not have his passport with him during the inspection.

On January 24 three detained people reportedly returned home. One of them is Khalim Musayev, a minor, who was detained together with his two brothers. The whereabouts of the rest of the detained remain unknown. It has been alleged they might be in custody in the Argun military headquarters.

The last "mopping-up" operation in Argun took place two weeks ago, claiming lives of several people. Shortly after that head of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, announced the operation was necessary to be repeated as guerillas in the town had not been done away with yet.

In contrast, the commander of the Russian federal forces in Chechnya, Vladimir Moltenskoy, said that even though he has reports that armed people have reappeared in Argun, no "special" operation was planned to take place there again.

However, rumour had it that new searches and checks were scheduled for February 23, the day of deportation of the Chechen nation to Kazakhstan, Siberia and Central Asia in 1944.

Prague Watchdog / Ruslan Isayev
www.watchdog.cz