CHECHNYA: THOUSAND REBELS LOCKED UP IN HIGHLANDS

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MOSCOW, February 25 (RIA Novosti) - Close on a thousand paramilitaries have been blockaded in the Chechen mountains, Taus Jabrailov, republican State Council president, said to a news conference in Moscow.

"There are three to four hundred who make up mercenaries' backbone, a roughly equal number of paramilitaries under [Shamil] Basayev, separatist chieftain, and 150 men subordinate to other warlords," he specified.

The present-day number of Chechen rebels makes approximately a thousand and a half, part of whom are stationed in the lowlands.

Aslan Maskhadov, another separatist leader, currently has in his subordination a mere several paramilitaries-his bodyguards. "Money is his strongest point," added Mr. Jabrailov.

Paramilitary emissaries are constantly recruiting new blood as law enforcement men are killing off the banditry. Such recruiters are active in and outside Chechnya.

Close on 1,800 have been reported missing in Chechnya for the previous five years, as far as Mr. Jabrailov knows. "It means more than one was vanishing every day," he pointed out.

"It's a blatant lie that federals or Kadyrov's men are to blame for the kidnaps," he went on with reference to Ahmad Kadyrov, Chechnya's previous President, who died in a terror blast of May 9, 2004, in Grozny, republican capital.

"Illegal paramilitary formations are real kidnappers-yet none of human rights organizations has referred to the fact, for some reason," emphasized the State Council head.

Bandits are killing rural and district administration officers, and stoop even to killing the clergy. Chechnya has more than 300 imams of rural mosques. More than thirty out of that number met their death by the bandit hand within the previous five years.

Mr. Jabrailov acknowledged a lack of coordination in law enforcement activities. Perhaps, that is what gives rise to kidnap rumors, he assumes.

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