KHANKALA. Oct 17 (Interfax-AVN) - Chechen extremists went on the air for radio contact 87 times on Tuesday, including 27 times in warlord Khattab's networks, a spokesman for the unified federal headquarters told Interfax-Military News Agency.
The talks were in the Arab, Russian and Ukrainian languages as well as in the Dari language spoken in Afghanistan, the spokesman said.
According to the military, warlords Aslan Maskhadov and Ruslan Gelayev established have intensified communication other rebel leaders and went on the air 37 times on Tuesday. The Gelayev group is going to unite with the one of Maskhadov to step up sabotage and terrorist activities in the piedmont part of Chechnya. Gelayev was also asked to bring 12 Strela shoulder-fired SAM systems to the breakaway republic.
According to radio interception data, both warlords are trying to scale up the mine warfare on the routes of federal troops. Rebels were found planting mines in the Shali, Nozhai-Yurt and Grozny rural districts on Tuesday. Engineering reconnaissance groups defused three radio-controlled landmines on the routes of military columns heading from Petropavlovskaya to Ilyinskaya, from Shali to Chiri-Yurt and from Serzhen-Yurt to Shali.