Five Pakistanis detained near Chechnya

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, APRIL 25. Five Pakistanis, suspected of trying to join Chechen rebels, have been detained in Russia as they illegally crossed the border from Azerbaijan, Russian security officials said.

The men, said to be residents of Punjab in Pakistan, were apprehended at a railway station in Dagestan, a Russian Republic neighbouring Chechnya. Mr. Gagin Dzarupayev, chief investigator of the Federal Security Service in Dagestan, told Russian state television RTR that the Pakistanis were probably heading for Chechnya to fight on the side of Muslim rebels.

``We suspect them of belonging to Pakistani intelligence,'' Mr. Dzarupayev said.

The Pakistanis, who had Azerbaijani visas issued in Islamabad on April 18, arrived in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, by flight from Pakistan on April 20. There they hired a local man who took them across the border to Dagestan for $ 500.

Interestingly, Russian television said security officials had asked an Indian student detained earlier in Chechnya to act as an interpreter for the Pakistanis. Mr. Mishra S. Raghunath had been suspected of fighting Russian forces in Chechnya, but now Russian television referred to him as a man who ``had been detailed by force in Chechnya.'' Foreign Ministry sources said no charges had been filed against the Indian and he was being interrogated as only a witness.

Moscow claims hundreds of foreigner mercenaries are fighting in Chechnya, mainly from Muslim countries, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey,

The Interfax news agency quoted Russian military sources as saying that another group of Arab mercenaries who had undergone terrorist training in Lebanon was getting ready to cross into Chechnya from Georgia, the only post-Soviet republic to have a common border with Chechnya.

Meanwhile, fighting in Chechnya intensified, with rebels ambushing a second Russian military column in three days on Tuesday. General Valery Manilov, chief military spokesman for Chechnya, told Interfax that an armoured personnel carrier had been damaged and one soldier wounded when rebels attacked a Russian reconnaissance unit at the entrance of the Argun Gorge near the foot of Chechnya's southern mountains.

According to verified official reports, 13 Russian paratroopers were killed and six wounded when Chechens ambushed another column on Sunday.

Also today, the Military News Agency AVN quoted Russian military commanders as saying that rebels continued to infiltrate Grozny and there were now 500 militants in the city, including 50 snipers, who now attacked Federal troops not only after night fall, but also in daytime.

Hit-and-run attacks on Russian forces have been on the rise since greenery covered Chechnya earlier this month. The Russian military say there are still about 3,500 rebels active in Chechnya, but the President of the neighbouring Russian Republic of Ingushetia, Mr. Ruslan Aushev, estimates the number of rebels at between 15,000 and 17,000. He told NTV private television on Monday that a guerilla war in Chechnya could go on for ``a very long time.''

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