GROZNY. Oct 8 (Interfax-AVN) - Law-enforcers and servicemen of the military commandant's office destroyed a large rebel base in the Gudermes district on Tuesday, commander of a Chechen special bodyguard company Ruslan Alkhanov told reporters.
Hideouts and dugouts for a group of saboteurs were discovered on a hill slope between Gudermes and Belorechye during a search operation, he said.
A Strela man portable anti-aircraft system, three grenade launchers, 117 pieces of small arms, several thousand cartridges, 25 sets of new NATO uniforms, medicines and means of communication were confiscated from a secret depot, Alkhanov said. He named as one possibility that the secret depot had been set up for a group which separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov had ordered to stage acts of terrorism against the head of the Chechen administration and individual district leaders.
Alkhanov said that local residents had tipped off the authorities about the base. He said the persons involved in creating it were identified and the Chechen police and special services are taking steps to seize them.