Word: budyonnovsk
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...terrorist raid unprecedented since the Russian civil war of the 1920s, more than 80 Chechens crossed into the neighboring Stavropol territory, concealed in trucks supposedly transporting coffins from the war zone, to launch a daring assault at high noon on the city of Budyonnovsk (pop. 100,000), some 70 miles from the Chechen border. Splitting into squads of five and six, the gunmen -- armed with automatic rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers -- fanned out across the city, joining up, according to Russian security officials, with rebels already in place...
After a battle with badly overmatched local police in which at least 20 officers were killed, the invaders occupied the Budyonnovsk town hall for almost two hours and hoisted the green, white and red Chechen flag in a mocking show of victory. Then the raiding party torched houses, set cars aflame, randomly sprayed passersby with bullets and pulled passengers off buses. Finally they retreated to the city hospital, taking hundreds of civilian hostages as a shield against hastily dispatched Russian special forces. The raiders "drove over people; they shot peaceful civilians in cold blood," reported Deputy Interior Minister Yevgeni Abramov...
...events in Budyonnovsk overshadowed good news last week for the Kremlin from the Chechen front. Russian forces seized the strategic villages of Shatoi and Nojai-Yurt, the last two major strongholds of Dudayev's forces. But the surprise Chechen raid on Russian territory signaled that for desperate fighters like Basayev, who has lost his wife and almost all his family in the war, the grudge match with Moscow is far from over. In fact, Budyonnovsk may be the opening skirmish in a new guerrilla war, waged on the streets of towns and cities across Russia...
...Chechen rebels who had been holding more than 1,500 hostages in a hospital in Budyonnovsk have released their prisoners and are heading home. More than 150 people volunteered to go along as human shields to insure the rebels' safety as the Chechens departed in a bus convoy. The gunmen agreed to release the hostages after Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomydrin, in a series of dramatic televised telephone negotiations with rebel leader Shamil Basayev, agreed todeclare a ceasefire in Chechnya, resume peace talks and give the gunmen safe passage home. The normally reticent Chernomyrdin surprised many with his decisive action...
Thousands of Russian troops are headed for the southern Russian city of Budyonnovsk, reportsTIME's Yuri Zarakhovich. Security has been tightened as far away as Moscow, several hundred miles to the north. "The government is deathly afraid of this," Zarakhovich reports. "They fear that this is only the beginning of what could be a long and bloody series of guerrilla attacks. They've really put the Chechens' backs to the wall, and now they have nothing left to lose." At least 42 have been killed and dozens more wounded in two days of fighting. Some 200 Chechens are holding about...