Oh I forgot most if not all the old testiment is also in the Koran is it not?

Russian troops locked in the "final assault" on Grozny have been astonished by the ferocity of the rebel resistance. In the heart of the Chechen capital, they are coming up against the cream of the guerrilla forces, led by battle-hardened veterans of the first Chechen war, like Khizir Khachukaev.

By Ruslan Isaev, in Nazran, Ingushetia (CRS No. 15, 21-Jan-00)

At the age of 39, Khizir Khachukaev boasts the kind of war record that older men envy and younger men dream of. Dubbed the "Hero of Bamut" during the first Chechen war, Khachukaev was awarded the republic's highest bravery medal, the Honour of the Nation, and promoted to the rank of full general in Aslan Maskhadov's militia. Early on in the conflict, he pioneered the anti-tank tactics later adopted by rebel fighters across the warzone and became a legend in his own time.

In the wake of the Russian invasion last September, Khachukaev was among the veteran field commanders charged with the defence of Grozny. His and other detachments spent four months turning the capital into a virtual fortress, building the "multi-layered" fortifications which the Russian generals have since found to be almost impregnable.

Khachukaev's crack unit of 300 fighters is currently defending the south-east of the city, including the Staropromyslovsky District, City Hospital No. 9 and Druzhba Narodov (Friendship of Nations) Square. They have withstood nearly a month of heavy bombardments from ground and air. Now they face repeated infantry attacks supported by light armour and mortars. They are fighting with their backs to the wall.

But Khachukaev remains determined. "I have enough food and supplies to hold out," he said in a telephone interview. "It's chaos here and this is the fiercest fighting we have seen. But Grozny is a symbol of Chechen independence - and to abandon the fight for independence is to betray our comrades who have given their lives for the cause."

A short distance from his headquarters, his wife, 11-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter are living in a basement, unable to leave the city, surviving on the meagre rations that the rebels can spare. The instinctive need to defend home and family could not be more immediate.

Khachukaev was born in Kazakhstan where his parents were exiled by Stalin in February 1944. The family returned to Chechnya in the late 1960s, settling in the Sernovodsk region, near the Ingushetian border. On the eve of the Russian invasion in December 1994, Khachukaev found himself in Bamut, a settlement of 3,000 people, 18km south of Sernovodsk. It was here that the Russians launched their first armoured assault against makeshift positions manned by around 120 local irregulars.

Before the war, Bamut had been a Russian military rocket base boasting vast underground rocket silos set to the south of the village. The rebel units used the silos to shelter from the Russian bombardment before emerging to launch vicious raids on advancing armoured columns. Khachukaev won enduring respect among the fighters by demonstrating the effectiveness of rocket-propelled grenades against Russian armoured personnel carriers - nicknamed "coffins on wheels" by federal troops.

Voted commander of the local garrison, Khachukaev beat off four attacks on the settlement over a period of 18 months and Bamut became a symbol of Chechen resistance in the western part of the republic. His unit was made up of relatives and friends as well as 40 members of President Aslan Maskhadov's Army of Ichkeria (the Chechen name for the republic). His brother was killed during the defence of the village.

Khachukaev later extended his area of operations north to Sernovodsk and Samashki where he resisted federal assaults until August 1996. Then he led a rebel unit of 300 fighters to Grozny, wresting the Leninsky and Staropromyslovsky regions away from the occupying forces. According to popular mythology, Khachukaev succeeded in breaking through Russian lines without a single casualty, losing only three dead and eight wounded in the ensuing fighting.

This was the first time I met Khachukaev, a quiet, modest man who shuns publicity. He had organised a ceasefire in order to allow wounded civilians out of Grozny under the auspices of the Red Cross: journalists were allowed into the city to report on the humanitarian operation. I was struck by his liberal views and his vision of an independent Chechen state where disparate religious factions were free to observe their faith. He spoke of his distrust for radical Wahhabi militants whose beliefs rejected the traditions of their ancestors.

In the aftermath of the first Chechen war, Khachukaev volunteered to join National Guard units which had been deployed to crush a Wahhabi uprising in Gudermes. In the event, both sides agreed to resolve the dispute in a sharia court but Khachukaev was later involved in several operations to free hostages taken by Wahhabi warlords. "After the war is over, whatever its outcome, the extremists should stand trial for their actions," he says. "There will be a reckoning."

Like most rebel field commanders, Khachukaev believes in leading from the front. As a rule, the guerrilla leaders enjoy few privileges, preferring to gain respect through their own actions. "In our army, you could see a colonel digging a trench or a general laying down sniper fire," he says. But his authority remains absolute.

Khachukaev's unit is divided up into smaller "gruppirovki" numbering seven or eight men. Each group has a machine-gunner, a sniper and a bombardier armed with rocket-propelled grenades as well as four or five riflemen. They are highly mobile, foraging for food and ammunition on the battlefields, remaining independent of tenuous supply lines.

In the ruins of the shattered city, they are in their element, outflanking direct Russian assaults with deadly efficiency. The most common tactic is to lure the federal troops into open ground by feinting a retreat, then to pour machine-gun fire on them from surrounding buildings.

Khachukaev said the dramatic capture of Major General Mikhail Malofeyev on January 18 was orchestrated during a similar manoeuvre. The general had been leading his regiment into the attack when they stumbled into a deadly crossfire. "The smoke cleared, the general looked round, and his entire regiment had vanished," said Khachukaev. "None of his men were prepared to walk into that meat-grinder. He was left there on his own."

Khachukaev claims that the general, who is deputy commander of Army Group North, was later taken to a rebel hideout in the southern foothills. Russian military sources are adamant that Malofeyev was killed by sniper fire.

Since federal troops launched their "final assault" on Grozny on January 18, Russian generals have been mystified by the rebels' ability to move rapidly from one part of the city to another. Russian media reports suggest the "spirits" are using the city's sewage system to outmanoeuvre the enemy - even that they have dug a tunnel 10km long between the city centre and the southern suburbs.

Khachukaev dismissed the theories as "nonsense", explaining that there was barely enough room in the sewers for rats, let alone armed men. Since the beginning of the siege, he said, rebel forces had been able to pass through the Russian blockade with impunity, relying on their knowledge of local terrain and the cover offered by gullies, ravines and ruined buildings.

Khizir Khachukaev belongs to the old school of rebel fighters. His goal is Chechen independence, rather than the victory of Islam or revenge against the Russian aggressors. After the first war, he was appointed head of a government taskforce formed to reconstruct areas destroyed by the fighting, as Chechnya set out confidently on the road to building a "modern democratic state". But now, as Khachukaev scrambles through the shell-pummelled ruins of the Chechen capital, this vision must seem very distant

By Jon Hagest ( - 4.54.203.71) on Thursday, January 27, 2000 - 01:04 pm:

Oh I forgot most if not all the old testiment is also in the Koran is it not?

no actually it is not. you must not know much about islam or christianty. thstd alright but its not fair for one who has no knowledge about a topic to make comments. although you do have a right to speak your mind

i do not advocate this.
* You advocate even more.

By Kissie ( - 192.114.47.50


and you dont?

I am not saying that the Chenchen rebles are not good fighters or pooly led Just the plain fact that unlike Salingrad there is no Massive army waiting behind the lines to reverse the Russian advances and with a determined Russia its just a matter of time. Bloody as the days may be.

By Jon Hagest ( - 4.54.203.7


here john read this, this is obviously someone opinion no one knows the real outcome we are all speculating are we not?


HARRY LEVINS MILITARY MATTERS : Even superpowers can be brought to their heels when their enemies employ asymmetric warfare
By Harry Levins


Imagine that nature pits you against a grizzly bear. The bear comes equipped with big teeth and sharp claws. You come equipped with small teeth and dull fingernails.

So you reach for a rifle.

That's asymmetric warfare. Instead of fighting on the enemy's terms, you fight on your own.

The Chechen rebels insist on waging asymmetric warfare against the Russian army. The Russian army seems to be stunned, just as it was stunned in Chechnya in 1994-96 - and just as its predecessor, the Soviet army, was stunned in the 1980s when the Afghans insisted on waging asymmetric warfare.

You'd think that by now, somebody would have learned a lesson. And maybe somebody has. The U.S. Army is finally getting around to putting a dose of asymmetry in its own combat training.

But first, the Russians. They're not training. They're fighting a life-and-death war, and they seem to be doing a bad job of it.

The first time around in Chechnya, the Russians tried to storm Grozny with tanks. The Russian army had built itself around tanks - all the better to roll over NATO with - so the Russians used what they had at hand.

Bad idea. Cities and tanks mix poorly. In narrow streets, tanks get slowed down and bottled up. A gutsy rebel with a few vodka-bottle gasoline bombs can rain havoc from high-rise buildings. Vodka bottles vs. tanks - that's classic asymmetrical warfare. It worked.

This time around, the Russians decided to bomb and shell Grozny from afar before walking in and taking over. Two problems.

First, bombing and shelling turns a city into rubble that makes the going even tougher for attackers. (In 1942-43, the Germans contributed with firepower to their own folly at Stalingrad, which the Russians seem to have forgotten.)

Second, in a CNN age, few nations can afford the public-relations black eye that they get from bombing and shelling civilians. The Israelis still pay a PR price for having shelled Beirut apartment buildings in the '80s.

Now, the Russians have put themselves in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't dilemma. If they fail to take Grozny, they're a paper tiger. If they take Grozny, the butcher's bill on both sides will run wretchedly high, with frightful PR consequences.

The Russian generals must wish the accursed Chechens would fight back with tanks and artillery pieces - in others words, wage symmetrical warfare. Most generals in most armies feel most comfortable when they fight an enemy like themselves. Everybody plays by the same rules, and if your army is bigger (or smarter), you win.

In Desert Storm, the U.S. Army faced a desert enemy that used Soviet tanks and Soviet doctrine. That made the Iraqis the perfect enemy. For an entire decade, the U.S. Army had trained hard out in the California desert to fight the Soviet army.

That training paid off big time against the Iraqis. But it paid off only once. Generals all over the world watched the war on CNN. Even the dullest among them must have concluded that fighting the U.S. Army on its own terms was madness.

Now, the U.S. Army itself is coming to grips with what it hath wrought. Reporter Richard J. Newman of U.S. News & World Report recently returned to that California training center.

Soon, Newman says, GIs who rotate through for war games will face an asymmetric enemy - one who fights in villages, who uses cheap jammers to befoul the Army's electronics, who tosses chemical weapons around and who has access to such miracles as night-vision goggles.

That's miserable for the GIs. But it's a reassuring sign that their generals may be learning a lesson the Russians seem determined to ignore.

By adder21
you must not know much about islam or christianty.

Actully as a Pastor's Son I am pretty well informed about christianity as it is practiced at the current time. But I will admit I am not a student of islam. By the way is there a point to all This verse quoting?

HEY, EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The so-called Ultra Russian National-Socialist(whoops.. I meant to say "communist") had a big disagreement, which started after I answered a PERSONAL question asked by HIM and was accused of lieing("the price to pay for talking to people without an ability to learn")..Right now we're in a stage where I tell him ALL(!) I think about him in a "russian"(if you know what I mean) way of arguing..and vica-versa
WHAT I AM ASKING YOU IS THAT - CAN YOU(WHOEVER WISHES) TELL ME(US) - WHO STRIKES YOU WITH MORE INTELLECT AND SANITY?????? IS IT ULTRA-RUSSIAN OR IS IT ME(DIMITRI)..


Fred Le Dingue, Gonzo, Betterthanyou, Kissie, L'Emenexe, Suleyman, Caucasian, Balalaika, Igor Walex
and ALL others - let me hear your opinion..
I will appriciate ALL the responces, whether they are negative toward me or not

P.S. I know that my "Survey" has nothing to do with the TOPIC OF THIS BOARD, but since I can't resolve things with Ultra in a physical way(he's too far from where I am at) - I am asking for this one EXCEPTION

THANK YOU boys and girls.

By Jon Hagest

the verse quoting was for someone else.

a pastors son eh! and your making remarks like this 🙂

What moslem country that doesnt have oil is not stuck in the third world with any indication of progressing?

Tell me, is it that Islam is a religion of bandits/gangsters, or bandits/gangsters use Islam for cover?

By Dimitri ( - 208.198.122.14) on

were all the same here all idiots!!!

By Kissie ( - 192.114.47.50) on Thursday, January 27, 2000 - 01:22 pm:


tell me, is it that Islam is a religion of bandits/gangsters, or bandits/gangsters use Islam for cover

tell me something is christianity a relegeon of child molesting priests ?
or skinnig humans alive as they did.

you think our so clever dont you..


lunch time!!!

thank you adder

Well I have to go for now, asymmetric warfare is political warfare, for it to work continueing the war has to become a bigger liability to the current russian leadership then looking like they caved into presser from the west. Since for the time being (except for western media's over bloon reports to the oposite) the War in chenchenia has widespread public support while caveng into the west is political suicide in russia. Especialy after almost a decade of incredablely stupid US foren policy toward russin. I Believe the rebels dont have the time for public oppinion to eroad while there tactics are also eroding there support from the chechen people (See the Human Rights watch report issued a couple days ago.) By the way my statement on muslem countries was economic in nature.