Russian forces kill 30 Chechen rebels, suffer losses

SLEPTSOVSK (RUSSIA), June 26: Russian forces killed more than 30 rebels in a string of special operations in separatist Chechnya, but also suffered losses in intensive shooting overnight, Russian news agencies said today.

Russia deployed helicopter gunships to bottle up separatists inside their bases in Chechnya’s southern mountains, and help repulse a rebel attack on the main base of Government forces in the province.

Meanwhile, 33 Chechen refugees, on hunger strike to demand peace talks to end the 20-month conflict, said they were determined to continue their fast to the bitter end.

Russian news agencies reported that federal troops and border guards had mounted a special operation yesterday to blockade rebels in the Sharo-Argun Gorge area on Chechnya’s southern border with Georgia.

The regional administration’s press service told Interfax news agency that 10 rebels had been killed and eight border guards injured during almost two days of fighting.

"All (the rebels’) attempts to escape the encirclement failed," Interfax quoted Russian officials as saying.

Itar-Tass quoted army headquarters in Chechnya as saying a 20-strong rebel group had been killed by helicopter gunships while attacking Russia’s main Khankala base.

Russian officials have been elated since this weekend’s killing of a top Chechen warlord, Arbi Barayev, accused of masterminding serial kidnappings.

He was the first separatist field commander to die in Russia’s high-profile campaign to eliminate rebel chiefs.

The rebel website kavkaz.org reported today that Barayev’s nephew, Movsar Barayev, had replaced him.

But Russian troops also suffered losses.

News agencies reported the Interior Ministry as saying two pro-Russian Chechen policemen were shot dead in the Leninsky region of Chechnya’s capital Grozny.

A separate landmine blast wounded several others.

Military officials said troops had exchange fired with rebels on at least 10 occasions in the previous 24 hours, with the fiercest clashes occuring in Grozny. Casualty figures remained unclear.

Police said they were probing the death of two civilians in Chechnya’s third-largest town of Argun, who were gunned down by masked assailants in a refugee centre.

An upsurge in clashes in the separatist republic has coincided with the emergence of a peace hunger strike movement by refugees clamouring for talks between the rebel leadership and Moscow.

Waves of refugees poured into the border town of Sleptsovsk on Sunday to demonstrate their support for the hunger strikers, some of whom are already in hospital suffering from exhaustion.

Ria news agency quoted Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin’s chief spokesman on Chechnya, as saying talks with separatist Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov were "useless".

And he dismissed the protest by refugees living in tent cities in the neighbouring Russian republic of Ingushetia as a rebel stunt designed to win public sympathy.

Russian troops withdrew from Chechnya in humiliation after a 1994-96 war against separatists but returned in October 1999 to attempt a further crackdown. Moscow’s shaky control over most of the breakaway territory is punctured by almost daily attacks. (REUTERS)

Dead and missing near 200 as Chinese typhoon causes landslide

BEIJING, June 26: The number of dead and missing from typhoon Chebi was approaching 200 in China today after a landslide killed at least 22 migrant workers in the city of Hangzhou.

As rescuers searched for scores of people missing after the typhoon ripped through the southeastern coastal region, officials warned the final death toll would rise further.

"We are still counting but the figure will be higher," said an official in the port of Fuzhou, where the typhoon made landfall over the weekend.

The official Xinhua news agency has reported that 79 people were dead and 87 missing around the city of Fuzhou after the typhoon, packing winds of up to 155 km per hour, pounded the coast of Fujian province.

In a later report, the agency said that 65 out of 80 missing seamen and fishermen had been rescued since the storm slammed into the region on Saturday.

It was unclear whether any of the missing seamen were included in the previous toll.

In Hangzhou, torrential rains brought by the typhoon were seen as the main cause of a landslide which engulfed a primitive tenement inhabited by migrant workers.

According to the People’s Daily internet service, 22 people died in the landslide, while seven were injured, two of them seriously.

The report did not say how many people were still missing, but it said 350 police and para-military officers had been deployed for rescue work. Officials at disaster-control offices along the affected coastline declined to comment on details of the casualties.

Witnesses said the sun was shining in Fuzhou today but in the suburbs of the city many roofs had been ripped off houses, billboards were lying in the mud and rows of trees had been felled like dominoes.

People could be seen mending twisted signboards and hoisting fallen trees out of the road.

The Fuzhou evening news said the worst-hit area was around the nearby towns of Fuqing and Changle.

The China daily said 321,400 houses were flattened in the region around Ningde along with 65,300 hectares of farmland. Total damage has been put at around 422 million dollars.

The report also said the Chinese military prevented seven Taiwanese ships from sinking or drifting away after their moorings in the Chinese port of Songxia broke. It said 45 Taiwanese and 160 local fishing boat were also saved.

The typhoon, classified as a maximum force-12 on the baufort scale, claimed 12 lives and left 18 missing in Taiwan.

Among them were the crew of a belize-registered cargo ship which sank amid strong winds and high waves off the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan on Saturday.

The China News Service said those on board were all Chinese. It said seven were dead, 12 were still missing and four had been rescued.

While Shanghai officials said there had been no casualties from the typhoon, local media indicated there had been some material damage near the city of 15 million. (AFP)

MQM appeals parties not to boycott Musharraf’s meet

ISLAMABAD, June 26: Pakistan’s third largest party, the Muthahaida Quami Movement (MQM), today urged the top political parties of the country to attend the all party meeting convened by President General Pervez Musharraf tomorrow and inform him that only the elected Government would have a legal mandate to hold talks with Indian leaders.

The political parties, including the umbrella group Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD), should attend the meeting and prevail upon Musahrraf that any discussion on Kashmir with Indian leaders would be fruitful only if they were held by elected Government, MQM leader Altaf Hussain said in a statement issued from London.

"The elected Government will have the constitutional and legal right to talk to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee over the differences, including Kashmir issue, between the two countries with consensus and will of the people of Pakistan," he said.

Hussain said the decision by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League (PML) to boycott the meeting with Musharraf was not a solution to any issue. But it was in the larger interest of the country to ask Musharraf to hold the elections first, he added. (PTI)

Sattar’s US visit a failure: PPP

LONDON, June 26: Former Pakistani Premier Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has claimed that Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar’s visit to America was a failure and that the American administration was surprised to discover that the Pakistani Cabinet was ignorant of the decision by General Pervez Musharraf about assuming the Presidency.

"A day before Musharraf assumed Presidency, Sattar met Secretary of State Colin Powell but failed to make any mention of it. Next day when he met American official Armitage, he was grilled about why he failed to take Powell into confidence. An embarrassed Sattar was forced to admit that he was ignorant of the decision," PPP’s investigative unit said here.

"Sattar’s explanation that he was out of the country for ten days cuts little ice with American officials. In the world of modern communications, such being out of the country is a poor excuse," it said.

"The Presidency announcement proved that the National Security Council as well as the Cabinet are showpieces for a one-man dictatorship. It is not known whether the Corp Commanders were taken into confidence or whether they too were treated as rubber stamps," PPP said in a statement.

There was lack of unanimity amongst the senior Generals about Musharraf becoming the President. He informed the Corp Commanders (about the decision to become President) on June 20, the day he assumed the Presidency, PPP claimed.

"All in all, it can be said that Sattar’s Western trip was a big failure. He was sabotaged by those who had sent him abroad but kept him in the dark," it said.

"Rumours abound that Sattar is being tipped as the new Premier whereas failed Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz is tipped as Foreign Minister. The US, the UK and Commonwealth have reacted negatively to governance by decree practised by Musharraf," it said. (PTI)

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