Gunmen Slay 5 Russians, Abduct Four

MOSCOW â€”  Several dozen gunmen believed to be Chechen rebels killed at least five border guards in the Russian republic of Dagestan on Monday, then took at least four hostages from a mountain village and fled through heavy fog with hundreds of police and soldiers in pursuit, authorities said.

The latest incident was somewhat reminiscent of a 1999 incursion into Dagestan, when Chechen guerrillas seized and held five villages for nearly three weeks.

But the fighters Monday were in the village of Shauri for only a few hours, and pro-Russian Chechen authorities vowed that the gunmen would be tracked down and killed.

“This is another act of terrorism aimed at destabilizing the overall situation in the country,� Ramazan Mamedov, Dagestan’s representative at the Kremlin, told the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.

The incident began when Russian border guards gave chase to a group of “25 to 40 bandits,� Dagestan Interior Ministry spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said in a telephone interview. “The soldiers got into an ambush.�

After the short firefight, “the rebels finished the wounded border guards with cold steel,� NTV television reported. The militants beheaded the border guards’ commander, Russian media said.

Four guards were missing and possibly taken hostage in addition to the villagers.

“Five servicemen were killed and their truck is upside down in a ravine,� Sergei Solovyov, a border guard spokesman, told NTV. “The rest of the men are missing, and we have no information so far about their whereabouts.�

The suspected rebels then entered Shauri, about 10 miles from Russia’s border with the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Tolchinsky said. Local officials told Russian media that the fighters took four hostages from the village: a male nurse, a heating plant employee, a university student and an unemployed man.

The group was reportedly armed with grenade launchers as well as assault rifles. At least part of the group reportedly commandeered vehicles for their escape.

Bad weather hindered Russian forces in their search for the gunmen.

“Border guard helicopters are being used to search the area where the rebels might be located,� said an unnamed military operations headquarters representative quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax. “The work of aircraft and ground groups is being hampered by poor visibility, which is close to zero.�

Authorities offered varied explanations as to where they believed the group came from, where it was headed and why it had entered the border area where Georgia, Dagestan and Chechnya meet.

“We believe they tried to move secretly from Georgia to their bases in Chechnya but their plan was aborted by the border guards and now the rebels are trying to go back into Georgia,� said Tolchinsky, the Dagestan Interior Ministry spokesman.

“It is difficult to fight and pursue the enemy in this area as it is mostly a high mountain terrain. But we hope that the bandits will not get away.�

The charge that the guerrillas entered Dagestan from Georgia could worsen already uneasy relations between Russia and its neighbor in the Caucasus. Moscow has previously asserted that Chechen rebels find safe haven in Georgia, particularly in the rugged Pankisi Gorge.

The United States is helping to train Georgian commandos to prevent terrorists from maintaining bases in that area.

Georgian officials said their border regions were under control and that they were sure the guerrillas had not entered Russia from the Georgia side.

“We can assure Russia that there is no reason to worry,� Nika Laliashvili, spokesman for the Georgian State Security Ministry, told Interfax. “The Pankisi Gorge is under our absolute control, and we are positive that no threat to Russia is coming from there.�

Although the mountain passes between the two countries are now covered with snow, there are many unguarded footpaths. It would appear that no authorities on either side could know for certain where the group came from or where the suspected Chechen rebels would try to flee.

“Today, the federal troops and other agencies involved face the task of destroying the fighters,� Rudnik Dudayev, head of Chechnya’s Security Council, said on Russian state-run television.

“One should not be talking about them going back to Chechnya or trying to leave Russia’s territory. The main task of today is to destroy them.�

Dudayev, in contrast to other officials, told Itar-Tass that he believed the “gang members� were mostly “foreign mercenaries� associated with Chechen separatists, and that their “sole objective is to get out and away from Chechnya� rather than to cross from Georgia into Chechnya.

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Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko contributed to this report.