The End of an Islamic State .... Chechnya

[Nadeem]

http://www.jang-group.com/jang/dec99...orial/col2.gif
__________________________________________________ _
PS: Dr. Afan Saljouq was my teacher in University. His article threw more light about the happenings in Chechnya

------------------
Nadeem

[Jaawan]

I have a feeling that something will happen something very bad, and it might just start from ANY of those troubled islamic states...but as for as this we all(muslims)should be ashamed of our selves!!!


Jaawan

------------------
Till next time***K_I_S_S***©




[This message has been edited by Jaawan (edited December 17, 1999).]

[NYAhmadiX]

Another example of neck in the sand types of pseudo-intellectuals. It is quiet interesting to read how Chechens are referred as “Martyrs, etc.”, while whenever Russian soldiers are referred to is always as “scum-bags”. The author has very little knowledge of the whole conflict, and has no clue about the history of the Russian Army. If it weren’t for Russians, Europe will be a fascist continent. Russians soldiers are as much soldiers as Chechens, or for that matter, anyone else. The Author is simply blowing his “Islami Brotherhood” horn, which seems to be quite popular with some circles.

[Mr Xtreme]

December 17 1999 RUSSIA





Richard Beeston, who was in Grozny when Russia invaded in 1994 and again in 1996, doubts the Kremlin can ever win


Harsh lesson of urban war


THE Chechen fighter approached me with a sad smile. "I did not want to kill those young men," he said. "But I'm fighting to defend my country, my home. When they arrived in Grozny we had no choice but to destroy them. Their tanks are burning, there are many dead."
In just about any other guerrilla war around the world, the boast of a rebel fighter about his latest victory would be just that - an idle boast to a foreign reporter. But when a Chechen makes a claim, he is worth listening to.

In this instance, the 30-year-old former mechanic reached into the pocket of his combat jacket and pulled out a wad of photographs and letters found on the bodies of the young men he had just killed, in this case an infantry unit from St Petersburg whose charred armoured personnel carriers littered the entrance to the Chechen capital.

In the winter of 1994-95 the Russians tried repeatedly to storm the city, sending wave after wave of young conscripts to their death in scenes not witnessed in Russia since the bloody struggle for Stalingrad.

Although that victory against Hitler's army had proved that urban warfare is a deathtrap for even the best-trained troops, the lessons were forgotten by the Russian generals who mismanaged the first Chechen war.

The Chechens, many of them Soviet-trained, used small, highly mobile units armed with light weapons that were concealed in underground bunkers and shelters beneath the rubble of the city centre.

Although irregulars, they were fed, armed and rotated regularly, and their knowledge of the terrain meant that they were able to pick off Russian infantry as they stumbled into the city and to wipe out entire armoured columns with rocket-propelled grenades, often fired at point-blank range.

The technique held the Russians at bay for two whole months until the Kremlin's best-trained troops, the marine infantry and paratroopers, eventually took the city in costly house-to-house, street-by-street fighting.

The victory proved short-lived. The Chechens withdrew their soldiers to the safety of the Caucasus mountains, regrouped, rearmed and eventually retook Grozny in August 1996 in a lightning strike, using the same techniques they had mastered in the defence of the city.

One fact that Russia has so far overlooked in the apparent success of its present offensive is that the Chechen army has still not fought. Most of its men, several thousand strong, are unharmed and their arms and ammunition safely kept in reserve.

If the Chechens choose to fight, many more Russians will be killed and injured before the Kremlin will be able to claim victory.

Even if they do finally succeed in taking the capital and raising the Russian tricolour over Grozny, they have no guarantee that the rebels will not counter-attack and catch the Russians off guard next year.

The Russian Cossack troops who founded the city in the last century called it Grozny for a reason. The word in Russian means terrible.

[ehsan]

NYA wrote "If it weren’t for Russians, Europe will be a fascist continent".

I don't know how you can say that. The Russians colonized a big chunk of Europe (Eastern Europe) after the second world war and turned them into some of the worst dictatorships the world has seen, under the guise of communism for nearly half a century.

[NYAhmadiX]

Dear Ehsan,

You are very right. But imagine a Nazi or a Fascist Europe. My point was that 20 million Russians were killed by their own Leader (Stalin), and describing Russian soldiers as “piece of dirt” is not a nice thing, which the author of the post have done.

I never said that Communism and Dictatorships are in any way acceptable, I was just trying to say that give Russian Soldiers (not the political establishment) a little more credit than just calling them monsters.