Militants taken prisoner in Itum-Kali district of Chechnya will be presented to reporters

The militants, taken prisoner at the Khangakhoi mountain pass in the Itum-Kali district of Chechnya at the border with Georgia, will be presented to reporters, the RIA Novosti correspondent was told on Monday by a source in the Russian power structures.

According to him, with this aim in view at the present time measures are being taken to bring the two captured militants from the mountainous part of the republic to the plain.

The source said that there could be no doubt that the gang of Chechen militants, which was spotted by Russian frontier-guards on Saturday, had come from the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia.

In the morning on Saturday, July 27, in the Kerigo Gorge of the Itum-Kali district of Chechnya, the Russian frontier-guards spotted a group of militants of up to sixty men who made an armed attempt to break through from Georgia to Chechnya. By the night, the Itum-Kali frontier-guards' team, with the support of the army aviation, blocked the area of the presence of the militants and the possible ways of their movements.

At the present time, the forces of the Defence Ministry and the Russian Federal Frontier Service of up to 200 men continue blocking the mountain passes and paths. Additional units of paratroopers are being transported to the place of the battle.

According to the latest data, during the battle in the Itum-Kali district the frontier-guards killed nine bandits and two were taken prisoner. However, the rest of the bandits, using the mountainous accidents of the terrain, are still trying to break through the encirclement.

The losses of the frontier-guards amounted to seven killed and five wounded.