CHECHNYA: RUSSIA/CHECHNYA CONFLICT: REBELS

(5 Feb 2000) Russian/Nat

Many of the Chechen rebels who made it out of the capital, Grozny, are moving south toward the rugged mountains, where thousands of their comrades are believed to be concentrated.

Senior Russian military officials say their forces will head south as soon as federal troops have seized Grozny, but the rebels insists they will continue to fight the Russians in a partisan campaign.

Russian forces are raining bombs and shells on villages in western Chechnya, where scores of rebels who
have escaped from the capital, Grozny, are concentrated.

At least three-thousand rebels fled what's left of the city since Monday but suffered heavy losses in their escape to the western Chechen villages.

But many more rebels made it out of Grozny - they have now moved south toward the rugged mountains, where thousands of their comrades are believed to be concentrated.

These video images, obtained by APTN, show one such group of Chechen rebels in the southern hills.

The rebels insist the mountains allow them more mobility to wage a guerrilla war - and they're ready to take on the might of Russian - and its leader, acting President Vladimir Putin.

SOUNDBITE: (Russian)
"This is a weapon we saved for Putin personally. I bought it for 500 rubles at a market. Inshallah!"
SUPERCAPTION: Chechen Rebel

The Russians have been bombarding the rebel-held Argun and Vedeno gorges, trying to dislodge the militants from their refuges on the forested inner slopes of the gorges.

The gorges are key corridors through the mountains that shelter rebels and from which they can mount guerrilla attacks on the Russians.

The Russians believe that rebel supplies are also coming through the gorges, some of them from Georgia, the only foreign country that borders on Chechnya.

Russia thought it had crushed the Chechens after Grozny fell in 1995 during the first Chechen war.

But the Chechens retreated to the mountains and went on fighting until they retook Grozny in 1996 and forced Russian forces to pull out of the territory.

For more than a century, the Chechens have been fighting the Russians for their independence.

And there is little sign that they will give up that struggle now.

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