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Chechen rebels launch attacks; at least 57 killed
Thousands of Russian troops swoop into area bordering Chechnya
CHERMEN, Russia - Thousands of troops poured into a southern Russian city Tuesday, chasing Chechen rebels who set fire to police and government buildings in coordinated attacks that killed at least 57 people, officials said.
The dead included 47 law enforcement officers or officials, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing Beslan Khamkoyev, acting interior minister of the republic of Ingushetia. A U.N. humanitarian worker was among the dead, authorities said, as were three high-ranking regional officials.
Late Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to Ingushetia where he told its president, Murat Zyazkikov, that the search for the attackers must go on “as long as necessary.” In remarks shown on Russian television, Putin thanked those who fought off the attackers and “did not allow the bandits to achieve their goals.”
The attacks underscored the Russian military’s failure to defeat separatists in neighboring Chechnya after five years of fighting, and raised new fears of spreading violence in southern Russia.
Many Chechen fighters trained and fought with the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Russia says many Arabs and other foreigners fight side-by-side with the Chechen rebels.
The Chechen militants also are said to receive support from al-Qaida and have strong contacts with the Wahhabi Muslim sect of Saudi Arabia, birthplace of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. The deeply fundamental beliefs of Wahhabism are believed to be bin Laden’s spiritual foundation.
Putin ordered authorities “to find and destroy” the militants, whose raid came amid preparations for an August election to replace Kremlin-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, killed last month in a bombing. Kadyrov’s death was seen as a significant blow to Putin’s efforts to bring some stability to Chechnya, devastated by two wars since the 1990s.
Rebels seize Interior Ministry
Shortly before midnight Monday, about 100 fighters armed with grenades and rocket launchers seized the regional Interior Ministry in Nazran, the largest city in Ingushetia and attacked border guard posts there. They also attacked posts in the villages of Karabulak and Yandare, near the border with Chechnya, regional emergency officials said.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told Putin that 15 officers from the Ingush Interior Ministry’s central building defended it for nearly six hours in a bid to keep rebels from entering the jail cells and freeing captives, Interfax reported.
Authorities sent in reinforcements shortly after dawn, with a long column of armored personnel carriers, trucks and troops moving into Nazran through the border village of Chermen in neighboring North Ossetia.
By midmorning, most of the militants had fled into forests on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya, authorities said. Zyazikov told Interfax a large number of weapons and ammunition were missing from police depots.
Russian media reported only two militant deaths. An Associated Press reporter also saw the body of one militant near Yandare.
At least one group of retreating rebels was caught by police near the Chechen border, and a firefight ensued, said Yakhya Khadziyev, spokesman for Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry.
In Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan that borders Chechnya to the north and east, three militants were killed by Russian special forces after an hours-long firefight, regional authorities reported.
Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the Russian forces in Chechnya, blamed Chechen rebels for planning the attacks, but said the raids were carried out by fighters recruited from both Chechnya and Ingushetia.
“The attacks were clearly saber rattling, aimed to demonstrate the rebels’ effectiveness to attract funding from foreign terrorist networks,” he said, according to the Interfax-Military News Agency.
Russian TV broadcast image of smoke-charred and burning buildings and burned-out vehicles.
The United Nations office in Russia said humanitarian worker, Magomed Getagazov, was killed when caught in the crossfire while returning home from work in Nazran.
Rebels plan new offensives
Chechnya’s Interior Minister Alu Alkhanov told ITAR-Tass that he believed Shamil Basayev, a Chechen rebel commander blamed for some of the most audacious attacks, was behind the violence. The Kremlin backs Alkhanov in Chechnya’s upcoming elections.
Chechnya’s separatist President Aslan Maskhadov warned recently that insurgents were preparing to undertake new offensives.
Russia’s NTV television showed footage of an encounter with some of the presumed attackers, wearing masks and speaking accented Russian, at a border crossing with North Ossetia. One of the attackers, carrying an automatic weapon, identified the group as “the Martyr’s Brigade,” NTV reported. The man added, “We have shot everyone here. Go and announce that.”
Acting Ingush Interior Minister Abukar Kostoyev, the health minister and a deputy interior minister were killed in the fighting, officials said. ITAR-Tass said Nazran city prosecutor Mukharbek Buzurtanov and Nazran district prosecutor Bilan Oziyev were also killed.
Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya in 1996 after a devastating 20-month war against separatists that left the region with de facto independence. They returned in September 1999, after rebel incursions into a neighboring region and after deadly apartment-building bombings in Moscow and other cities were blamed on the militants.
Although Chechnya is a largely Muslim region in overwhelmingly Christian Russia, the first of Chechnya’s two wars was an essentially secular conflict. After Russian troops pulled out when Chechen rebels fought them to a standstill, the separatists increasingly took on a specifically Islamic mantle.
Thousands of federal troops streamed into a southern Russian republic on Tuesday in pursuit of suspected Chechen rebels who attacked police and government buildings in coordinated assaults that officials said killed at least 57 people.
TIMELINE Beyond Chechnya
Actions outside of Chechnya linked to the conflict.
Feb. 6, 2004
An explosion rips through a subway car in the Moscow metro during rush hour, killing at least 30 people.
Dec. 9, 2003
Female suicide bomber blows herself up outside Moscow’s National Hotel, across from the Kremlin and Red Square, killing five bystanders.
Dec. 5, 2003
Suicide bombing on commuter train in southern Russia kills 44 people. President Vladimir Putin condemns attack as bid to destabilize the country two days before parliamentary elections. Six people were killed in two blasts on the same railway line in September.
Sept. 16, 2003
Two suicide bombers drive a truck laden with explosives into a government security services building near Chechnya, killing three people and injuring 25.
Aug. 1, 2003
50 people are killed in Mozdok, North Ossetia, when a truck bomb smashes through the gates of a hospital where Russian soldiers injured in Chechnya are treated.
July 10, 2003
A Russian security agent dies in Moscow while trying to defuse a bomb a woman had tried to carry into a cafe on central Moscow’s main street.
July 5, 2003
Double suicide bombing at a Moscow rock concert kills the female attackers and 15 other people.
Oct. 24, 2002
Chechen rebels seize 800 people in a Moscow theater. After a three-day standoff, Russian authorities launch a rescue attempt in which all 41 attackers are killed along with 127 hostages who succumb to a knockout gas used to incapacitate the assailants.
May 4, 2002
Lone gunman holds 13 people hostage at a hotel in Istanbul to protest situation in Chechnya. The gunman surrenders after an hour.
April 22, 2001
Some 20 gunmen hold about 120 people for 12 hours at a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, to protest Russian actions in Chechnya. The rebels later surrender to police and release the hostages.
March 16, 2001
Three Chechens hijack a Russian airliner leaving Istanbul and divert it to Saudi Arabia. Saudi forces storm plane, killing one hijacker and two hostages.
Sept. 16, 1999
Bombs shear off the front of a nine-story apartment building in Volgodonsk, 500 miles south of Moscow. Nearly 20 are killed. Authorities again blame Chechens rebels, but nobody is charged.
Sept. 13, 1999
A bomb destroys an apartment building in southern Moscow, killing 70. Officials blame Chechens, but nobody is ever charged in the attack.
Sept. 9, 1999
Explosion wrecks a nine-story apartment building in southeast Moscow, killing almost 100. Authorities suspect a Chechen bomb, although no evidence is ever provided to support the claim.
Sept. 4, 1999
Bomb destroys a building housing Russian military officers and families in Buinaksk in Russia's Dagestan region. Sixty-four die. Russian officials blame Chechen rebels, but never prove their involvement.
March 9, 1996
Turkish sympathizer hijacks jetliner flying out of Cyprus to draw attention to situation in Chechnya. The sympathizer surrenders after plane lands in Munich, Germany.
Jan. 16, 1996
Six Turks and three Chechens hold 255 hostages on ferry in Black Sea, threatening to blow up ship if Russia doesn't halt battles in southern Russia. The rebels surrender after three days.
Jan. 9, 1996
Chechen militants seize 3,000 hostages at a hospital in southern Russian town of Kizlyar. Rebels release most, then head for Chechnya with about 100 hostages. Rebels are stopped in a village and attacked by Russian troops. At least 78 die in weeklong fight.
June 14, 1995
Chechen gunmen take 2,000 hostages at a hospital in southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk, near Chechnya. After failed attempts at force, Russia negotiates the hostages' release in exchange for the gunmen's escape. More than 100 die.
The dead included 47 law-enforcement officers or officials, the ITAR-Tass news agency cited Beslan Khamkoyev, acting interior minister of the republic of Ingushetia as saying.
The United Nations office of humanitarian aid coordination in Russia said a UN worker, Magomed Getagazov, was among the dead, caught in a crossfire while returning home from work in Nazran, the main city of Ingushetia.
The militants' foray into Ingushetia underscored the Russian military's failure to defeat separatists in neighboring Chechnya after five years of fighting, and raised new fears that violence could spread to other parts of southern Russia.
Putin, frowning, ordered authorities "to find and destroy" the raiders. "Those who can be caught must be taken alive and brought to trial," Putin told a Kremlin meeting of police and security officials, in remarks aired on state television.
The raid in Ingushetia came amid preparations for an August election in Chechnya to replace Kremlin-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, killed last month in a bomb attack. Kadyrov's death was seen as a significant blow to Putin's efforts to bring some stability to warring Chechnya.
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South Korean hostage executed
Seoul reiterates it will send 3,000 troops to Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi militant group believed to be linked to al-Qaida beheaded a South Korean hostage Tuesday after the Seoul government refused to remove its soldiers from Iraq.
U.S. soldiers on a routine patrol found the body of the man, Kim Sun-il, 33, between Baghdad and Fallujah, 22 miles west of the capital, about noon (4 a.m. ET), military officials told NBC News. They said that Kim’s body was booby-trapped with explosives but that the explosives did not go off.
The South Korean Embassy in Baghdad confirmed that the body was Kim’s by studying a picture of the remains it received by e-mail, Shin said. South Korean television showed Kim’s distraught family members weeping and rocking back and forth with grief at their home in the southeastern port city of Busan.
President Bush condemned the execution and said he remained confident that South Korea would go ahead with plans to send 3,000 troops to Iraq. “The free world cannot be intimidated by the brutal actions of these barbaric people,” he said in Washington.
U.S. forces launched an airstrike in Fallujah on a safehouse used by followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist whose al-Qaida-linked group, Monotheism and Jihad, was believed to have snatched and killed Kim.
The Arabic-language satellite television channel Al-Jazeera reported that three people were killed and that six others were wounded, while witnesses and a hospital official told Reuters that four people were killed.
Statement read on new video
Kim worked for Gana General Trading Co., a South Korean company supplying the U.S. military in Iraq. He was abducted last week, according to the South Korean government.
• Hostage beheaded
June 22: The body of Kim Sun-il was found by a U.S. military patrol near Fallujah. It was booby-trapped with explosives, which did not detonate. NBC’s Tom Aspell reports.
NBC News
A videotape, apparently made shortly before his death and aired on Al-Jazeera, showed Kim kneeling, blindfolded and wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those issued to prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Five hooded men stood behind Kim, one reading a statement and gesturing with his right hand. Another captor had a big knife slipped in his belt.
One of the masked men said the message was intended for the Korean people: “This is what your hands have committed. Your army has not come here for the sake of Iraqis, but for cursed America.”
The video did not say when Kim was killed. A spokesman for Al-Jazeera said the tape went on to show one of the men cutting off Kim’s head with a knife, which the station did not air.
Al-Jazeera said the video claimed that the execution was carried out by al-Zarqawi’s organization, which also claimed responsibility for the decapitation of U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg last month on a videotape that was posted on an al-Qaida-linked Web site. U.S. officials believe al-Zarqawi himself wielded the knife in Berg’s killing.
In Saudi Arabia, Paul M. Johnson Jr., 49, a U.S. helicopter technician, was kidnapped by al-Qaida militants who followed through on a threat to kill him if the kingdom did not release its al-Qaida prisoners. An al-Qaida group claiming responsibility posted an Internet message that showed photographs of Johnson’s severed head.
Kim’s kidnappers had initially threatened to kill him at sundown Monday unless South Korea canceled its troop deployment to Iraq. The government rejected the demand, standing firm with plans to dispatch 3,000 soldiers starting in August.
In a dispatch from Baghdad, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted an “informed source” as saying negotiations with the kidnappers collapsed over the South Korean government’s refusal to comply.
S. Korea to evacuate 22 nationals
South Korea convened its National Security Council shortly after Kim’s death was confirmed and reiterated its decision to send more troops to Iraq. “Our government’s basic spirit and position has not changed,” a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said.
The government had already said that it would evacuate the last of its 22 nationals in Iraq by early next month because of concern over reprisals for the deployment. It also warned its citizens not to travel to Iraq for the same reason.
Kim was believed to have been kidnapped about 10 days ago. A videotape broadcast Sunday by Al-Jazeera showed him pleading for his life.
Kim, described as a devout Christian, studied Arabic as well as English in South Korea. His parents said he went to Iraq because he dreamed of becoming a missionary in the Arab world, the Seoul newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported. A South Korean television news station, YTN, said he had been in Iraq for about eight months.
Recent abductions and attacks appear aimed at undermining the interim government that is set to take power June 30, when the U.S.-led occupation formally ends. U.S. and Iraqi officials have vowed to go ahead with the transfer.
Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said that by week’s end, all Iraqi government ministries would be under full Iraqi control.
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Justice Dept. disavows memo
on torture tactics Administration releases documents on prisoners
WASHINGTON - Stung by suggestions that top U.S. officials encouraged mistreatment of prisoners from the war on terrorism, the Justice Department disavowed a memo that appeared to justify the use of torture Tuesday.
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The memo, signed by former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, included long sections that appeared to defend the use of torture and contended that U.S. personnel could be immune from prosecution. The memo also argued that the president’s powers as commander in chief allowed him to override U.S. laws and international treaties banning torture.
Senior officials at the Justice Department told The Associated Press that the 50-page memo, which was issued to the White House on Aug. 1, 2002, would be repudiated and replaced because it contained what they called overbroad and irrelevant advice. The new document will narrowly define the question of proper interrogation techniques for al-Qaida and Taliban detainees, they said.
The decision became known as the White House launched a wide-ranging public relations campaign to counter suggestions that the administration had condoned torture. Late Tuesday afternoon, it released hundreds of pages of documents concerning the treatment of prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush says he can ‘suspend Geneva’
Two inches thick, the documents chronicled how the administration grappled from January 2002 to April 2003 with how aggressively interrogators should push detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other facilities.
Administration lawyers argued that terrorists were not entitled to protections of the Geneva Conventions, the series of international treaties that govern the treatment of prisoners of war. President Bush accepted that argument, declaring that detainees from the war in Afghanistan, who were held at the base in Cuba, were “illegal combatants,” not prisoners of war. But he wrote that all detainees should be treated humanely, regardless of their status.
“I accept the legal conclusion of the attorney general and the Department of Justice that I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority at this time,” the president said in the memo, titled “Humane Treatment of al-Qaida and Taliban Detainees.”
In Iraq, it was decided from the start that all detainees were prisoners of war. “Iraq was going to be all Geneva, all the time,” said a lawyer for the military who briefed reporters Tuesday.
Speaking earlier Tuesday in the Oval Office, Bush told reporters: “We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.”
Rumsfeld approved use of dogs
But early on, military officials in Cuba asked for permission to use more aggressive interrogation techniques to get better intelligence about future terrorist plots, including the threat of death or the use of wet towels or dripping water to create the sensation of drowning, the memos show.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected those tactics but approved 17 other interrogation tactics in December 2002, such as forcing a detainee to stand up for as long as four hours, forced isolation for up to 30 days, deprivation of light, use of 20-hour interrogations, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, “inducing stress by use of detainee’s fears (e.g., dogs)” and use of mild physical contact that did not cause injury.
In one of the documents, Rumsfeld asked why detainees could be forced to stand up for only four hours, noting that he was routinely on his feet eight to 10 hours a day.
A Defense Department legal brief recommending the use of the tactics argued that the proposed techniques were likely to pass constitutional muster as long as they were applied “in a good faith effort and not maliciously or sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.”
“The federal torture statute will not be violated as long as any of the proposed strategies are not specifically intended to cause severe physical pain or suffering or prolonged mental harm,” said the legal brief, whose contents have been reported previously.
Defense sources told NBC News that some military interrogators refused to use the more aggressive techniques because they considered them violations of international law. A month later, Rumsfeld rescinded the order.
Fact File Probing the military
At least seven investigations have been launched into allegations of abuse by U.S. personnel at military prisons. Click below for details:
• Guantanamo Naval Base
• Bagram, Afghanistan
• Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Criminal investigation
• Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Taguba report
• Worldwide
• Army reserve: Training
• Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Military intelligence
Guantanamo Naval Base
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asks Navy inspector general in May to investigate the prisons at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and at the Charleston, S.C., Naval Station Brig, where war-on-terror detainees are being held.
Follow-up: Ongoing
Bagram, Afghanistan
Investigation into the deaths of two inmates in December 2002, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan after complaints by human rights groups. Military coroners rule the deaths homicide.
Follow-up: Ongoing, although the military says that procedures have been modified at the Afghan facility.
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Criminal investigation
Criminal investigation into the treatment of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad after complaints made by a soldier in January 2004.
Follow-up: Six Army soldiers from the 800th Military Police Brigade charged in March with various offenses including dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts.
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Taguba report
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez orders an investigation in January into abuses at Abu Ghraib to be conducted by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba.
Follow-up: In a lengthy report, Taguba concludes in March that "several U.S. Army soldiers have committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law." Six noncommissioned and commissioned officers receive letters of reprimand.
Worldwide
Army’s inspector general office in February launches an investigation of "detention operations around the world" to ensure humane, normal policies are followed.
Follow-up: Ongoing
Army reserve: Training
Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, orders an investigation in May into the state of training of Army Reserve units. The 800th is an Army Reserve unit based at Fort Totten, N.Y.
Follow-up: Ongoing
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Military intelligence
Army Maj. Gen. George Fay, the service's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, launches an investigation in May into the possible involvement of military intelligence personnel in the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
Follow-up: Ongoing
‘Constant drip on this issue’
William J. Haynes, general counsel of the Defense Department, said the release of the documents would hinder the war on terrorism by effectively telling enemy fighters what limits were being imposed on U.S. interrogators.
But Haynes said the decision was needed to counter charges that the administration’s interpretation of the law paved the way for the highly publicized abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad late last year.
Another senior official, speaking to the AP, complained about the “constant drip on this issue” - a continuous stream of leaks and accusations that the administration had stepped outside the bounds of international law. “Everyone reached the conclusion that the administration had authorized torture,” he said.
The official, saying the United States was facing a new kind of war with an enemy that did not respect or operate under the rules of the Geneva Conventions, pointed to the kidnapping and beheading of U.S. civilian engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia last week. The papers released Tuesday showed that the White House and other agencies were wrestling with “how best to address that foe,” another official said.
Criticism of White House continues
Critics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere have said that memo provided the legal underpinnings for subsequent abuses of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Human rights lawyers took the unusual step of filing a racketeering lawsuit this month against U.S. civilian contractors who worked at Abu Ghraib. The suit alleges that contractors conspired to execute, rape and torture prisoners during interrogations to boost profits from military payments.
Reacting to the White House release, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused the administration of continuing to withhold information.
“Though this is a self-serving selection, at least it is a beginning,” Leahy said. “But for the Judiciary Committee and the Senate to find the whole truth, we will need much more cooperation and extensive hearings.”
Thousands of Russian troops swoop into area bordering Chechnya
CHERMEN, Russia - Thousands of troops poured into a southern Russian city Tuesday, chasing Chechen rebels who set fire to police and government buildings in coordinated attacks that killed at least 57 people, officials said.
The dead included 47 law enforcement officers or officials, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing Beslan Khamkoyev, acting interior minister of the republic of Ingushetia. A U.N. humanitarian worker was among the dead, authorities said, as were three high-ranking regional officials.
Late Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to Ingushetia where he told its president, Murat Zyazkikov, that the search for the attackers must go on “as long as necessary.” In remarks shown on Russian television, Putin thanked those who fought off the attackers and “did not allow the bandits to achieve their goals.”
The attacks underscored the Russian military’s failure to defeat separatists in neighboring Chechnya after five years of fighting, and raised new fears of spreading violence in southern Russia.
Many Chechen fighters trained and fought with the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Russia says many Arabs and other foreigners fight side-by-side with the Chechen rebels.
The Chechen militants also are said to receive support from al-Qaida and have strong contacts with the Wahhabi Muslim sect of Saudi Arabia, birthplace of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. The deeply fundamental beliefs of Wahhabism are believed to be bin Laden’s spiritual foundation.
Putin ordered authorities “to find and destroy” the militants, whose raid came amid preparations for an August election to replace Kremlin-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, killed last month in a bombing. Kadyrov’s death was seen as a significant blow to Putin’s efforts to bring some stability to Chechnya, devastated by two wars since the 1990s.
Rebels seize Interior Ministry
Shortly before midnight Monday, about 100 fighters armed with grenades and rocket launchers seized the regional Interior Ministry in Nazran, the largest city in Ingushetia and attacked border guard posts there. They also attacked posts in the villages of Karabulak and Yandare, near the border with Chechnya, regional emergency officials said.
Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev told Putin that 15 officers from the Ingush Interior Ministry’s central building defended it for nearly six hours in a bid to keep rebels from entering the jail cells and freeing captives, Interfax reported.
Authorities sent in reinforcements shortly after dawn, with a long column of armored personnel carriers, trucks and troops moving into Nazran through the border village of Chermen in neighboring North Ossetia.
By midmorning, most of the militants had fled into forests on the border of Ingushetia and Chechnya, authorities said. Zyazikov told Interfax a large number of weapons and ammunition were missing from police depots.
Russian media reported only two militant deaths. An Associated Press reporter also saw the body of one militant near Yandare.
At least one group of retreating rebels was caught by police near the Chechen border, and a firefight ensued, said Yakhya Khadziyev, spokesman for Ingushetia’s Interior Ministry.
In Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan that borders Chechnya to the north and east, three militants were killed by Russian special forces after an hours-long firefight, regional authorities reported.
Maj. Gen. Ilya Shabalkin, spokesman for the Russian forces in Chechnya, blamed Chechen rebels for planning the attacks, but said the raids were carried out by fighters recruited from both Chechnya and Ingushetia.
“The attacks were clearly saber rattling, aimed to demonstrate the rebels’ effectiveness to attract funding from foreign terrorist networks,” he said, according to the Interfax-Military News Agency.
Russian TV broadcast image of smoke-charred and burning buildings and burned-out vehicles.
The United Nations office in Russia said humanitarian worker, Magomed Getagazov, was killed when caught in the crossfire while returning home from work in Nazran.
Rebels plan new offensives
Chechnya’s Interior Minister Alu Alkhanov told ITAR-Tass that he believed Shamil Basayev, a Chechen rebel commander blamed for some of the most audacious attacks, was behind the violence. The Kremlin backs Alkhanov in Chechnya’s upcoming elections.
Chechnya’s separatist President Aslan Maskhadov warned recently that insurgents were preparing to undertake new offensives.
Russia’s NTV television showed footage of an encounter with some of the presumed attackers, wearing masks and speaking accented Russian, at a border crossing with North Ossetia. One of the attackers, carrying an automatic weapon, identified the group as “the Martyr’s Brigade,” NTV reported. The man added, “We have shot everyone here. Go and announce that.”
Acting Ingush Interior Minister Abukar Kostoyev, the health minister and a deputy interior minister were killed in the fighting, officials said. ITAR-Tass said Nazran city prosecutor Mukharbek Buzurtanov and Nazran district prosecutor Bilan Oziyev were also killed.
Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya in 1996 after a devastating 20-month war against separatists that left the region with de facto independence. They returned in September 1999, after rebel incursions into a neighboring region and after deadly apartment-building bombings in Moscow and other cities were blamed on the militants.
Although Chechnya is a largely Muslim region in overwhelmingly Christian Russia, the first of Chechnya’s two wars was an essentially secular conflict. After Russian troops pulled out when Chechen rebels fought them to a standstill, the separatists increasingly took on a specifically Islamic mantle.
Thousands of federal troops streamed into a southern Russian republic on Tuesday in pursuit of suspected Chechen rebels who attacked police and government buildings in coordinated assaults that officials said killed at least 57 people.
TIMELINE Beyond Chechnya
Actions outside of Chechnya linked to the conflict.
Feb. 6, 2004
An explosion rips through a subway car in the Moscow metro during rush hour, killing at least 30 people.
Dec. 9, 2003
Female suicide bomber blows herself up outside Moscow’s National Hotel, across from the Kremlin and Red Square, killing five bystanders.
Dec. 5, 2003
Suicide bombing on commuter train in southern Russia kills 44 people. President Vladimir Putin condemns attack as bid to destabilize the country two days before parliamentary elections. Six people were killed in two blasts on the same railway line in September.
Sept. 16, 2003
Two suicide bombers drive a truck laden with explosives into a government security services building near Chechnya, killing three people and injuring 25.
Aug. 1, 2003
50 people are killed in Mozdok, North Ossetia, when a truck bomb smashes through the gates of a hospital where Russian soldiers injured in Chechnya are treated.
July 10, 2003
A Russian security agent dies in Moscow while trying to defuse a bomb a woman had tried to carry into a cafe on central Moscow’s main street.
July 5, 2003
Double suicide bombing at a Moscow rock concert kills the female attackers and 15 other people.
Oct. 24, 2002
Chechen rebels seize 800 people in a Moscow theater. After a three-day standoff, Russian authorities launch a rescue attempt in which all 41 attackers are killed along with 127 hostages who succumb to a knockout gas used to incapacitate the assailants.
May 4, 2002
Lone gunman holds 13 people hostage at a hotel in Istanbul to protest situation in Chechnya. The gunman surrenders after an hour.
April 22, 2001
Some 20 gunmen hold about 120 people for 12 hours at a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, to protest Russian actions in Chechnya. The rebels later surrender to police and release the hostages.
March 16, 2001
Three Chechens hijack a Russian airliner leaving Istanbul and divert it to Saudi Arabia. Saudi forces storm plane, killing one hijacker and two hostages.
Sept. 16, 1999
Bombs shear off the front of a nine-story apartment building in Volgodonsk, 500 miles south of Moscow. Nearly 20 are killed. Authorities again blame Chechens rebels, but nobody is charged.
Sept. 13, 1999
A bomb destroys an apartment building in southern Moscow, killing 70. Officials blame Chechens, but nobody is ever charged in the attack.
Sept. 9, 1999
Explosion wrecks a nine-story apartment building in southeast Moscow, killing almost 100. Authorities suspect a Chechen bomb, although no evidence is ever provided to support the claim.
Sept. 4, 1999
Bomb destroys a building housing Russian military officers and families in Buinaksk in Russia's Dagestan region. Sixty-four die. Russian officials blame Chechen rebels, but never prove their involvement.
March 9, 1996
Turkish sympathizer hijacks jetliner flying out of Cyprus to draw attention to situation in Chechnya. The sympathizer surrenders after plane lands in Munich, Germany.
Jan. 16, 1996
Six Turks and three Chechens hold 255 hostages on ferry in Black Sea, threatening to blow up ship if Russia doesn't halt battles in southern Russia. The rebels surrender after three days.
Jan. 9, 1996
Chechen militants seize 3,000 hostages at a hospital in southern Russian town of Kizlyar. Rebels release most, then head for Chechnya with about 100 hostages. Rebels are stopped in a village and attacked by Russian troops. At least 78 die in weeklong fight.
June 14, 1995
Chechen gunmen take 2,000 hostages at a hospital in southern Russian town of Budyonnovsk, near Chechnya. After failed attempts at force, Russia negotiates the hostages' release in exchange for the gunmen's escape. More than 100 die.
The dead included 47 law-enforcement officers or officials, the ITAR-Tass news agency cited Beslan Khamkoyev, acting interior minister of the republic of Ingushetia as saying.
The United Nations office of humanitarian aid coordination in Russia said a UN worker, Magomed Getagazov, was among the dead, caught in a crossfire while returning home from work in Nazran, the main city of Ingushetia.
The militants' foray into Ingushetia underscored the Russian military's failure to defeat separatists in neighboring Chechnya after five years of fighting, and raised new fears that violence could spread to other parts of southern Russia.
Putin, frowning, ordered authorities "to find and destroy" the raiders. "Those who can be caught must be taken alive and brought to trial," Putin told a Kremlin meeting of police and security officials, in remarks aired on state television.
The raid in Ingushetia came amid preparations for an August election in Chechnya to replace Kremlin-backed Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, killed last month in a bomb attack. Kadyrov's death was seen as a significant blow to Putin's efforts to bring some stability to warring Chechnya.
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South Korean hostage executed
Seoul reiterates it will send 3,000 troops to Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi militant group believed to be linked to al-Qaida beheaded a South Korean hostage Tuesday after the Seoul government refused to remove its soldiers from Iraq.
U.S. soldiers on a routine patrol found the body of the man, Kim Sun-il, 33, between Baghdad and Fallujah, 22 miles west of the capital, about noon (4 a.m. ET), military officials told NBC News. They said that Kim’s body was booby-trapped with explosives but that the explosives did not go off.
The South Korean Embassy in Baghdad confirmed that the body was Kim’s by studying a picture of the remains it received by e-mail, Shin said. South Korean television showed Kim’s distraught family members weeping and rocking back and forth with grief at their home in the southeastern port city of Busan.
President Bush condemned the execution and said he remained confident that South Korea would go ahead with plans to send 3,000 troops to Iraq. “The free world cannot be intimidated by the brutal actions of these barbaric people,” he said in Washington.
U.S. forces launched an airstrike in Fallujah on a safehouse used by followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist whose al-Qaida-linked group, Monotheism and Jihad, was believed to have snatched and killed Kim.
The Arabic-language satellite television channel Al-Jazeera reported that three people were killed and that six others were wounded, while witnesses and a hospital official told Reuters that four people were killed.
Statement read on new video
Kim worked for Gana General Trading Co., a South Korean company supplying the U.S. military in Iraq. He was abducted last week, according to the South Korean government.
• Hostage beheaded
June 22: The body of Kim Sun-il was found by a U.S. military patrol near Fallujah. It was booby-trapped with explosives, which did not detonate. NBC’s Tom Aspell reports.
NBC News
A videotape, apparently made shortly before his death and aired on Al-Jazeera, showed Kim kneeling, blindfolded and wearing an orange jumpsuit similar to those issued to prisoners at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Five hooded men stood behind Kim, one reading a statement and gesturing with his right hand. Another captor had a big knife slipped in his belt.
One of the masked men said the message was intended for the Korean people: “This is what your hands have committed. Your army has not come here for the sake of Iraqis, but for cursed America.”
The video did not say when Kim was killed. A spokesman for Al-Jazeera said the tape went on to show one of the men cutting off Kim’s head with a knife, which the station did not air.
Al-Jazeera said the video claimed that the execution was carried out by al-Zarqawi’s organization, which also claimed responsibility for the decapitation of U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg last month on a videotape that was posted on an al-Qaida-linked Web site. U.S. officials believe al-Zarqawi himself wielded the knife in Berg’s killing.
In Saudi Arabia, Paul M. Johnson Jr., 49, a U.S. helicopter technician, was kidnapped by al-Qaida militants who followed through on a threat to kill him if the kingdom did not release its al-Qaida prisoners. An al-Qaida group claiming responsibility posted an Internet message that showed photographs of Johnson’s severed head.
Kim’s kidnappers had initially threatened to kill him at sundown Monday unless South Korea canceled its troop deployment to Iraq. The government rejected the demand, standing firm with plans to dispatch 3,000 soldiers starting in August.
In a dispatch from Baghdad, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted an “informed source” as saying negotiations with the kidnappers collapsed over the South Korean government’s refusal to comply.
S. Korea to evacuate 22 nationals
South Korea convened its National Security Council shortly after Kim’s death was confirmed and reiterated its decision to send more troops to Iraq. “Our government’s basic spirit and position has not changed,” a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said.
The government had already said that it would evacuate the last of its 22 nationals in Iraq by early next month because of concern over reprisals for the deployment. It also warned its citizens not to travel to Iraq for the same reason.
Kim was believed to have been kidnapped about 10 days ago. A videotape broadcast Sunday by Al-Jazeera showed him pleading for his life.
Kim, described as a devout Christian, studied Arabic as well as English in South Korea. His parents said he went to Iraq because he dreamed of becoming a missionary in the Arab world, the Seoul newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported. A South Korean television news station, YTN, said he had been in Iraq for about eight months.
Recent abductions and attacks appear aimed at undermining the interim government that is set to take power June 30, when the U.S.-led occupation formally ends. U.S. and Iraqi officials have vowed to go ahead with the transfer.
Dan Senor, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said that by week’s end, all Iraqi government ministries would be under full Iraqi control.
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Justice Dept. disavows memo
on torture tactics Administration releases documents on prisoners
WASHINGTON - Stung by suggestions that top U.S. officials encouraged mistreatment of prisoners from the war on terrorism, the Justice Department disavowed a memo that appeared to justify the use of torture Tuesday.
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The memo, signed by former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, included long sections that appeared to defend the use of torture and contended that U.S. personnel could be immune from prosecution. The memo also argued that the president’s powers as commander in chief allowed him to override U.S. laws and international treaties banning torture.
Senior officials at the Justice Department told The Associated Press that the 50-page memo, which was issued to the White House on Aug. 1, 2002, would be repudiated and replaced because it contained what they called overbroad and irrelevant advice. The new document will narrowly define the question of proper interrogation techniques for al-Qaida and Taliban detainees, they said.
The decision became known as the White House launched a wide-ranging public relations campaign to counter suggestions that the administration had condoned torture. Late Tuesday afternoon, it released hundreds of pages of documents concerning the treatment of prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bush says he can ‘suspend Geneva’
Two inches thick, the documents chronicled how the administration grappled from January 2002 to April 2003 with how aggressively interrogators should push detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other facilities.
Administration lawyers argued that terrorists were not entitled to protections of the Geneva Conventions, the series of international treaties that govern the treatment of prisoners of war. President Bush accepted that argument, declaring that detainees from the war in Afghanistan, who were held at the base in Cuba, were “illegal combatants,” not prisoners of war. But he wrote that all detainees should be treated humanely, regardless of their status.
“I accept the legal conclusion of the attorney general and the Department of Justice that I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority at this time,” the president said in the memo, titled “Humane Treatment of al-Qaida and Taliban Detainees.”
In Iraq, it was decided from the start that all detainees were prisoners of war. “Iraq was going to be all Geneva, all the time,” said a lawyer for the military who briefed reporters Tuesday.
Speaking earlier Tuesday in the Oval Office, Bush told reporters: “We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.”
Rumsfeld approved use of dogs
But early on, military officials in Cuba asked for permission to use more aggressive interrogation techniques to get better intelligence about future terrorist plots, including the threat of death or the use of wet towels or dripping water to create the sensation of drowning, the memos show.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected those tactics but approved 17 other interrogation tactics in December 2002, such as forcing a detainee to stand up for as long as four hours, forced isolation for up to 30 days, deprivation of light, use of 20-hour interrogations, removal of clothing, forced shaving of facial hair, “inducing stress by use of detainee’s fears (e.g., dogs)” and use of mild physical contact that did not cause injury.
In one of the documents, Rumsfeld asked why detainees could be forced to stand up for only four hours, noting that he was routinely on his feet eight to 10 hours a day.
A Defense Department legal brief recommending the use of the tactics argued that the proposed techniques were likely to pass constitutional muster as long as they were applied “in a good faith effort and not maliciously or sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm.”
“The federal torture statute will not be violated as long as any of the proposed strategies are not specifically intended to cause severe physical pain or suffering or prolonged mental harm,” said the legal brief, whose contents have been reported previously.
Defense sources told NBC News that some military interrogators refused to use the more aggressive techniques because they considered them violations of international law. A month later, Rumsfeld rescinded the order.
Fact File Probing the military
At least seven investigations have been launched into allegations of abuse by U.S. personnel at military prisons. Click below for details:
• Guantanamo Naval Base
• Bagram, Afghanistan
• Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Criminal investigation
• Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Taguba report
• Worldwide
• Army reserve: Training
• Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Military intelligence
Guantanamo Naval Base
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asks Navy inspector general in May to investigate the prisons at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and at the Charleston, S.C., Naval Station Brig, where war-on-terror detainees are being held.
Follow-up: Ongoing
Bagram, Afghanistan
Investigation into the deaths of two inmates in December 2002, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan after complaints by human rights groups. Military coroners rule the deaths homicide.
Follow-up: Ongoing, although the military says that procedures have been modified at the Afghan facility.
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Criminal investigation
Criminal investigation into the treatment of Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad after complaints made by a soldier in January 2004.
Follow-up: Six Army soldiers from the 800th Military Police Brigade charged in March with various offenses including dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, assault and indecent acts.
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Taguba report
Gen. Ricardo Sanchez orders an investigation in January into abuses at Abu Ghraib to be conducted by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba.
Follow-up: In a lengthy report, Taguba concludes in March that "several U.S. Army soldiers have committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law." Six noncommissioned and commissioned officers receive letters of reprimand.
Worldwide
Army’s inspector general office in February launches an investigation of "detention operations around the world" to ensure humane, normal policies are followed.
Follow-up: Ongoing
Army reserve: Training
Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, orders an investigation in May into the state of training of Army Reserve units. The 800th is an Army Reserve unit based at Fort Totten, N.Y.
Follow-up: Ongoing
Abu Ghraib, Iraq: Military intelligence
Army Maj. Gen. George Fay, the service's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, launches an investigation in May into the possible involvement of military intelligence personnel in the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.
Follow-up: Ongoing
‘Constant drip on this issue’
William J. Haynes, general counsel of the Defense Department, said the release of the documents would hinder the war on terrorism by effectively telling enemy fighters what limits were being imposed on U.S. interrogators.
But Haynes said the decision was needed to counter charges that the administration’s interpretation of the law paved the way for the highly publicized abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad late last year.
Another senior official, speaking to the AP, complained about the “constant drip on this issue” - a continuous stream of leaks and accusations that the administration had stepped outside the bounds of international law. “Everyone reached the conclusion that the administration had authorized torture,” he said.
The official, saying the United States was facing a new kind of war with an enemy that did not respect or operate under the rules of the Geneva Conventions, pointed to the kidnapping and beheading of U.S. civilian engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia last week. The papers released Tuesday showed that the White House and other agencies were wrestling with “how best to address that foe,” another official said.
Criticism of White House continues
Critics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere have said that memo provided the legal underpinnings for subsequent abuses of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Human rights lawyers took the unusual step of filing a racketeering lawsuit this month against U.S. civilian contractors who worked at Abu Ghraib. The suit alleges that contractors conspired to execute, rape and torture prisoners during interrogations to boost profits from military payments.
Reacting to the White House release, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused the administration of continuing to withhold information.
“Though this is a self-serving selection, at least it is a beginning,” Leahy said. “But for the Judiciary Committee and the Senate to find the whole truth, we will need much more cooperation and extensive hearings.”