FSB Detentions and Terrorist Attacks

The FSB announced that it had detained three persons whom it considers "having a connection to the terrorist attacks." As it later turned out, the detainees are simply people who recently rented out premises in the buildings on Guryanova St. and Kashirskoye Highway to a person using the passport of the deceased Chechen Mukhit Laipanov. It is assumed that it was in these premises that the authors of the terrorist attacks assembled hundreds of kilograms of explosive materials, with which they blew up both buildings. Investigative authorities "outlined the circle of persons directly responsible for the tragedy." This could be the fake Laipanov, as well as Denis Saitov, who recently lived with him in the same hotel room. Television shows photos of both of them, adding that Saitov left Moscow for the Caucasus.

[Talk "in the city" about the Islamic crescent of the map of terrorist attacks, starting from the Manege - "stars", Azerbaijanis in Luzhniki are being beaten by groups of teenagers, Putin: "Chechnya is a large camp of terrorists", about a sanitary cordon, primarily economic]

According to Putin, the authorities of Chechnya, which "is a part of the RF," "must hand over the bandits to us." The Prime Minister also announced a review of the agreement concluded in 1996 in Khasavyurt, which ended the Chechen war.

16.09.99. City under a magnifying glass.

More than 22 thousand police officers are combing Moscow.

• We have evidence that the terrorists who committed the terrorist attacks in Moscow have taken refuge in Chechnya, - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said yesterday. He wants to demand the extradition of terrorists from Chechnya (Reuters, AFP, MAW).

The official search for the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks has been given the code name "Vikhr" (Whirlwind).

• In Moscow itself, 22 thousand police officers are participating in the operation, who in five days conducted more than 18 thousand searches.
• 289 units of weapons and almost 4 thousand rounds of ammunition were confiscated.
• Almost 40 thousand rented dwellings were also checked.
• Control also covers hotels, bars, markets.
• In the process, the police arrested 134 criminals listed on wanted lists.
• Over 16 thousand persons without permanent registration in Moscow were also detained. If they fail to register within three days, they will be removed from the city. [The operation will expand to the whole country and the Caucasus; Igor Sergeyev on thousands of Chechen militants on the border with Dagestan]

Deputy head of the Moscow police, General Alexander Veldyayev, reported yesterday that the police and intelligence have established how the latest attacks in the Russian capital, in which more than 200 people died, were carried out.

• "Both attacks were carried out by Chechen militants. To cover their tracks, they used people with a Slavic appearance" - Veldyayev reported to journalists.

Since the first explosion on September 9, the Moscow police have detained 27 people. Neither their faces nor their nationality have been made public. However, the main suspects have vanished as if into thin air:

• A man using the passport of the Chechen Mukhit Laipanov, who has been dead for a year, who rented premises in both destroyed buildings.
• His accomplice Denis Saitakov, probably a resident of Tatarstan.

[Maskhadov complains about the raid on Shali, the Ministry of Internal Affairs talks about fundamentalist bases]

17.09.99. Finish off the bastard.

Russia: Terrorists kill, the government goes mad.

• 437 residents were registered in the 8-story building at 35 Gagarina St. in Volgodonsk. A bomb planted by terrorists killed at least 17.
• The Mayor of Moscow is seeking an answer in Chechnya (Wacław Radziwiłowicz).

Photo: Bomb over the Don. After the explosion, a crater 5 m deep and 15 m wide remained. In two entrances of building No. 35, the front wall collapsed, and a fire broke out on the fifth floor. In Volgodonsk, which has 200,000 inhabitants near the Don, already after the explosions in Buynaksk and Moscow, the police checked and sealed all basements and attics in residential buildings - Mayor Sergei Gorbunov assures.

A shell with a power - as experts estimate - equal to 300 kg of TNT was placed either on a GAZ 53 truck, which at 5:25, fifteen minutes before the explosion, drove up to the house, or in a sewer manhole. The explosion damaged 40 neighboring houses, a kindergarten, and a school.