Federal forces continue to eliminate bandits in Chechnya

Federal forces continue to eliminate surviving members of gangs, which were located and destroyed over the last two days.

This was disclosed to RIA Novosti by Col. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman of the regional command center for supervising the counter-terrorist operation.

According to Shabalkin, army special forces located and killed two militants in a forest between the villages of Dargo and Zhani-Vedeno in Chechnya's Vedeno district.

Two charged high-explosive homemade bombs were found after the battle, Shabalkin added.

A booby trap exploded, while sappers were defusing the third bomb; three local scouts serving with the Vostok (East) battalion under Sulim Yamadayev were injured to a varying extent, Shabalkin said.

18 members of illegal armed units have been killed in south Chechen districts over the last 24 hours during a special operation involving federal units, Shabalkin told RIA Novosti.

Surviving militants have split into small groups (2-3 people each), spreading out through local forests and mountain areas, Shabalkin went on to say.

Special forces are now conducting search-and-kill operations, Shabalkin went on to say.

In Shabalkin's words, additional units, which were involved in the special operation, are now returning to their permanent bases. For their own part, bandits will be ambushed during their redeployment.

According to the source, it has been learned during the special operation that illegal armed units have virtually stopped receiving instructions from their commanders over the last several days. This is particularly true of Vedeno-district gangs. Control has been disorganized, with the gangs failing to coordinate their operations and to communicate with each other.

Various gangs operating in the republic's south districts, the Vedeno district included, haven't received any instructions from bandit leaders over the last two months, Shabalkin said in conclusion.