GROZNY. June 2 (Interfax-AVN) - Federal sappers found and defused several explosive devices in Chechnya on Sunday, a source in the regional operational headquarters managing the anti- guerilla operation in the North Caucasus told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"Sappers engaged in engineer intelligence on the outskirts of the Tolstoi-Yurt village in the Grozny rural district found and destroyed a home-made explosive device made on the basis of a 82-mm mortar shell," the source said.
"A similar home-made explosive device made of three 82-mm mortar shells was detected by sappers on an engineer reconnaissance mission on the road between Novogroznensky and Khasavyurt. The landmine was defused and destroyed," the source noted.
"Sappers on an engineer reconnaissance mission on a road outside the Bulgaz-Irzu village found a 120-mm mortar shell prepared for installation as a landmine, as well as unconnected elements of an explosive device covered by the ground in a rush," he said.
According to the source, several guerilla caches were destroyed on Sunday.
"Two caches were found in abandoned country houses on the outskirts of the Chiri-Yurt village in the Shali district. They contained six grenade launcher rounds, 13 electric detonators, 10 TNT charges, and over 1,000 cartridges for assault rifles," he said.
Residents of the Duba-Yurt village in the same district told law-enforcers of five rebels in camouflage whom they saw in a forest not far from the village. The rebels were carrying sacks.
Servicemen combed the outskirts of Duba-Yurt and found a cache that contained an RPK portable machine-gun, an SVD sniper rifle, two assault rifles, five rounds for an underbarrel grenade launcher, a home-made explosive device, and about two tonnes of various food such as canned meat and fish, grain and flour," the source said.
A resident of the Novogroznenskoye village in the Gudermes district filed a complaint with the village police department, and the servicemen sent to check it found a cache in a ruined house on the outskirts of the village. The cache contained two RPG-18 Mukha grenade launchers, six RPG-26 grenade launchers, 21 rounds for the underbarrel grenade launcher, 18 hand grenades with fuses, three 152-mm shells, 20 30-mm shells, 300 7.62-mm cartridges for the AK assault rifle.
A total of 10 caches and 38 illegal oil refineries were found in Chechnya on Sunday. Federals seized seven small-arms pieces, over 52,000 pieces of ammunition for small-arms, five grenade launchers, 126 grenade launcher rounds, 19 hand grenades, 13 artillery shells, 28 mortar shells, and 12kg of explosives.