DATE=8/9/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA CAUCASUS-UPDATE (L)
NUMBER=2-252610
BYLINE=EVE CONANT
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Fighting in southern Russia between local
security forces and suspected Islamic militants has
claimed its first casualties. Four policemen have been
killed and at least 15 others injured in the clashes.
Correspondent Eve Conant in Moscow reports more
violence is expected around the three villages held by
rebels.
TEXT: Russian news agencies say the first casualties
were Dagestani police officers involved in clashes
with insurgents in the mountainous northern Caucasus
region bordering breakaway Chechnya.
///OPT/// The Dagestani Interior Ministry press
service says 40 rebels have been killed in the
fighting, but there is no independent confirmation of
that number. ///END OPT///
The Itar-Tass news agency reports fighting is
continuing and that early Monday a helicopter carrying
the Russian Army's general chief of staff, Anatoly
Kvashin, came under fire during an attack on a local
airport. General Kvashin reportedly escaped unharmed.
Russian officials say the several hundred insurgents
surrounding the Dagestani villages are members of an
obscure Islamic sect who have crossed the border from
Chechnya. The officials say the insurgents are
attempting to make Dagestan an independent Islamic
state. But Chechen officials have denied that any
armed groups have crossed their territory into
Dagestan.
Outgoing Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, who was
fired from his post Monday, said Russia ran the risk
of losing the southern province.
///ACT Stepashin in Russian in full and fade under///
"Today the situation in Dagestan is very difficult,"
he says. "I think we could really lose Dagestan."
Russian news agencies report the country's newly
appointed acting prime minister, former intelligence
chief Vladimir Putin, as saying the fighting
contributed to Mr. Stepashin's ouster, and that Mr.
Putin would consider introducing what he described as
a "special regime" in the republics bordering
Chechnya.
///OPT/// On Saturday and Sunday, Russian helicopter
gunships pounded the infiltrators' positions. Russian
news agencies quote Interior Ministry officials as
saying the rebels are heavily armed with anti-tank
guns and air defense systems. ///END OPT///
Both sides were reported sending reinforcements to the
remote region, and officials said more fighting is
expected around three rebel-held villages. Some two-
thousand civilians have already fled the captured
villages for Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala. The
villagers told Russian television interviewers that
the rebels did not threaten them, but asked for help
in introducing Islamic law to the region.
Russian officials are in the difficult position of
trying to suppress the violence, but are wary of
getting involved in an extended war. These latest
clashes are being described as the worst outbreak of
violence since the Chechen war in the mid-1990s.
(Signed)
NEB/EC/PCF/rrm
09-Aug-1999 09:58 AM EDT (09-Aug-1999 1358 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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