Word: argun
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About two months ago, Movsar disappeared from Argun, the war-shattered town southeast of Grozny where he commanded guerrilla operations. People who asked after him were told that he had moved his base elsewhere. He may well have been already in Moscow, working on the theater attack. Some of his comrades almost certainly were. The 50-odd people with him--who dubbed themselves the 29th Suicide Division to give their group gravitas--were, according to knowledgeable Chechens, a composite team drawn from Movsar's own fighters and select members of other Chechen units. The women made up a third...
...CHECHNYA Towns Under Siege Russian forces blockaded Chechnya's third-largest city, Argun, for five days, shelling houses where rebels sought refuge. Still, a group of rebels slipped out of the tightly sealed city, and Russian troops continued operations in other Chechen villages and towns. Moscow claims to have killed 92 rebels in a month-long crackdown by security forces southeast of the capital Grozny...
...fact, the Chechens were just biding their time. Last week guerrillas came out of nowhere to raid three important towns. Creeping into Argun, mixing with local residents, attackers assaulted Russian troops occupying buildings in the town square, killing 10 or 20 before ferocious return fire drove them off. In Shali, hundreds of rebels brazenly encircled the Russian military commandant, demanding he hand over his troops' weapons and clear out. The Chechens blocked a base on the edge of the town, so when Russian armor tried to deploy in support of their comrades at headquarters, they were pinned down...
...would fall in a matter of days; on Monday, though, they were forced to admit that rebels had broken through Russian lines over the weekend, recapturing a number of villages around the capital and inflicting heavy casualties on Moscow's forces. Fierce fighting for control of the towns of Argun and Shali continued Monday even as Russian troops appeared to be regrouping and rearming for a renewed assault on Grozny. Russian public confidence in a quick and clean victory, which translated into an almost unassailable lead for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the race for president, also appears to have...
Despite taking two important Chechen cities, Argun and Shali, last week, the Russian army faces a long slog in Chechnya. "It won't end so quickly," said the Russian commander, Colonel General Anatoli S. Kulikov. "We calculate that by the summer period, we can establish control of two-thirds of the territory...