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18 dead in Chechnya helicopter crash; conflicting reports on cause
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 27 - 04 - 2007

ON-DON, Russia, April 27, SPA -- A Russian military helicopter
heading to the scene of a clash with separatist rebels
crashed in Chechnya on Friday, killing all 18 people
aboard, emergency officials said.
There were conflicting reports about whether the craft was
shot down, but the fact that it was en route to a military
operation underlined that Chechnya's insurgency remains
active, although significantly quieter than a few years
ago, according to AP.
It was the largest single-day loss of life reported by the
Russian military in Chechnya in at least two years.
The Mi-8 helicopter went down while flying to southern
Chechnya as part of an operation against militants, an
official at the regional branch of the Emergency Situations
Ministry said, speaking on condition of anonymity because
he was not authorized to give his name to the media.
The operation was in the Shatoi region, deep in the rugged
Caucasus Mountains where small rebel bands take shelter,
eluding Russian troops in the thick forests and deep
ravines.
The emergency official said preliminary indications were
that the helicopter _ carrying 15 soldiers and a crew of
three _ was shot down, but a ministry duty officer in the
region later called the crash an accident, saying a rotor
blade had struck something during an attempt to land.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov gave a third version of
the crash. «The cause of the catastrophe, according to
information from the scene, was a technical failure,» he
was quoted as saying by the RIA-Novosti news agency.
Russian forces have fought two wars against separatist
rebels in Chechnya over the past dozen. The first ended in
1996 after 20 months when Russian forces withdrew after
rebels fought them to a standstill.
The second began in September 1999, after Chechnya had
de-facto independence for three years in which it plunged
into lawlessness marked by banditry, ransom kidnappings and
new violence by separatists increasingly aligned with
fundamentalist Islam.
Major fighting in the second war died down years ago and
Russian forces have firm control over the republic's
northern flatlands. But the forces have not been able to
purge the capital Grozny of rebels, and insurgents have
encampments in the southern mountains.
Rebels and soldiers continue to fight in small clashes,
and the insurgents also bloody Russian forces with
booby-traps and remote-detonated explosives.
The emergency official said the helicopter was one of
three that was flying toward an area in southern Chechnya
where a group of suspected militants had been spotted. The
ITAR-Tass news agency quoted an unidentified law
enforcement official as saying three militants were killed
in fighting in the area.
-- SPA


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