Chechen Separatists Start To Set Up Highland Camps With The Advent Of Spring

Chechen separatists are constructing a training camp near the settlement of Serzhen-Yurt, a RIA Novosti correspondent was told in the regional anti-terrorist operative headquarters. Moreover, headquarters officials noted that as disguise characteristics of the terrain were improving and the weather getting warmer, some militants were deployed at highland camps, constructed and equipped beforehand. As a rule, bandits' activities stretch within 10 km-range away from the camps. Arms and ammunition, transferred by a caravan from Daghestan, are kept in secret caches near the village of Durinlam in the mountainous part of the Nozhai-Yurt region. Israpilov, separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov's agent, is responsible for transportation of shipments from Georgia to Chechnya. Bandits not only practise subversive-terrorist activities, but also try to lay an information and psychological pressure on the locals, headquarters officials noted. For instance, separatists' accomplices distribute leaflets, in which militants threaten to execute those who help the federal forces.