DATE=9/8/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA / DAGESTAN (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-253597
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Russian forces are stepping up an
offensive in the southern Dagestan region, one
day after President Boris Yeltsin angrily
demanded prompt measures to crush a Muslim
insurgency. V-O-A correspondent Peter Heinlein
in Moscow reports that Dagestani leaders are also
expressing impatience with the slow pace of the
fighting.
TEXT: Russia's Interior Ministry Wednesday
reported ground combat in and around 11 villages
in the Novolak region, about 50 kilometers
northwest of the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala.
Further south, fighter jets and artillery were
said to be pounding two other villages seized by
Muslim extremists nearly a year ago.
The government news service, meanwhile, reported
rebel fighters were advancing on Dagestan's
second largest city, Khasavyurt. But the
insurgents answered with a message on their
internet website denying any move toward
Khasavyurt or any other major population centers.
The message accused Russian authorities of
intentionally exaggerating the situation to
frighten the local population.
A flurry of upbeat assessments from the
government Wednesday followed a sharp rebuke from
President Yeltsin. In a televised outburst, Mr.
Yeltsin accused Russia's generals of
"carelessness" for being caught off guard by the
rebel invasion, and by a bomb attack on a
military housing complex that killed wives and
children of soldiers.
Dagestani leaders are also expressing impatience
with the apparent stalemate in the combat zone,
where a small but well-equipped band of rebels
remains firmly entrenched despite air strikes,
artillery shelling and ground attacks by a
federal force many times its size.
Dagestan's vice-premier, Gadgi Makhachev,
Wednesday urged Russian forces to take the fight
into neighboring Chechnya, the breakaway region
used by the rebels as a base of operations.
/// MAKHACHEV ACT ///
He says, "We must finish this war as soon as
possible. If we keep going the way we are, not a
single village will be left in Dagestan. It's
time to move into Chechnya. They are destroying
our villages, we must destroy theirs."
Officials in Moscow, however, have made clear
they have no intention of repeating the
mistakes made in the disastrous war in Chechnya
in the mid-nineties. That 21-month conflict left
an estimated 80-thousand people dead, most of
them civilians, and ended with a humiliating
withdrawal of Russian troops from the region.
(Signed)
NEB/PFH/GE/KL
08-Sep-1999 11:17 AM EDT (08-Sep-1999 1517 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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