GROZNY. Jan 30 (Interfax-AVN) - A rebel base and several arms caches have been destroyed in Chechnya, the regional headquarters directing anti-guerilla efforts in the North Caucasus said on Friday.
Officers of the Gudermes district police department supported by the local commandant's office of the Russian Interior Ministry Force found the base in a forest between the villages of Komsomolskoye and Stepnaya, the headquarters reported. The base was maintained by a relatively large rebel gang led by Ruslan Taimaskhanov.
While examining the base, federals found four plastic cans of pulverous homemade explosive weighing a total of 174kg, aluminium powder and two 122-mm artillery shells. The base was found thanks to information from the locals, the report reads.
The criminal investigation department of the Gudermes district police, the provisional operations force of the Russian Interior Ministry and a Chechen military commandant's office held a search operation in Gudermes using the information obtained in the same way. They searched a house and found in it a homemade mortar, 90 82-mm mortar shells, 26 fuses, 19 powder charges for grenade launcher rounds, seven electric detonators, two clockworks, and several thousand small-arms cartridges. The owner of the house was detained and is presenting explanations to the police. Officials of the district prosecutor's office have started working on the scene.
The whereabouts of another arms cache was reported to the police by a resident of Grozny. It was located in a ruined building and contained seven rounds for the GP-25 underbarrel grenade launcher, three PG-7 rounds, a blasting cup and 400g of TNT. The ammo and explosives were taken out of the city and destroyed in a safe place.
The police of the Grozny rural district have found a cache on the outskirts of the Kulary village. It contained four MON-100 mines, three MON-3 mines and eight GP-17 grenade launcher rounds.
The ammunition was destroyed on the scene by blast. An investigation is underway.