INGUSHETIA: WARLORD'S ARSENAL TRACKED DOWN

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MOSCOW, November 12 (RIA Novosti) - A major arsenal has been found in Ingushetia, Russia's North Caucasian republic bordering on Chechnya. The cachet belonged to notorious warlord Shamil Basayev, reports Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the regional operation HQ for North Caucasian anti-terror action.

The operation involved officers of the Federal Security Service and Interior Ministry, and the Chechen presidential security service. They confiscated a solid stock of automatics and pistols, more than 53,000 cartridges of many calibres, 240 grenade-thrower rounds, 100 kilograms of explosives, and thirty control boards for makeshift explosive devices.

The arsenal was in Srednie Achaluki, a village in Malgobek District, Ingushetia. Law enforcement officers got the secret from a Jama'at Caliphate activist, detained in Ingushetia's Nazran, October last. He has to retain anonymity at present in investigating interests. The cooperative detainee has offered much more information in his statements, added Mr. Shabalkin.

Basayev had intended his arsenal for several gangs to trigger off warfare in Ingushetia. As far as investigators know, it was made last year on his order by Khoshbaudi Dushayev, another warlord, who died in battle with federal soldiers, autumn 2003.

Dushayev's men were plotting major terror acts in Ingushetia. In May 2003, they had two Kamaz lorries carrying several tonnes of explosives. The Ingush secret service thwarted the blasts. Its officers stopped the vehicles on the Chechen-Ingush administrative border the same month. Several paramilitaries, who were going by the lorries, had a narrow escape. Federal Security Service men drove the lorries away into wasteland close to the spot where they were apprehended, and blasted them after villagers evacuated the vicinity, recollects Ilya Shabalkin.

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