MOSCOW/GROZNY. May 5 (Interfax-AVN) - More than 200 Chechen police officers are taking part in a large-scale operation to search for rebels in eastern Chechnya, press secretary for the republic's Interior Ministry Ruslan Atsayev told Interfax on Wednesday.
"Over 200 policemen, including those from a special-task police unit and a traffic police regiment, are involved in an operation that is taking place in the republic's Kurchaloi, Gudermes and Nozhai-Yurt districts," Atsayev said.
The operation is aimed at searching for rebels who attacked a checkpoint of the Chechen presidential security service and the Chechen Interior Ministry's traffic police regiment near the village of Alleroi on May 1.
"This is a major operation whose main goal is to comb the forest area. The rebel group in question has up to 30 members," the press secretary said.
Chief of the Chechen presidential security service's headquarters Artur Akhmadov told Interfax earlier that a rebel base, capable of housing up to 30 rebels, had been discovered near the village of Gansolchu.
"We have received a report that Akhmed Avdorkhanov, head of (separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov's - Interfax) security service, is currently in the area sealed off by the operation," Akhmadov said.
He accused Avdorkhanov of commanding the May 1 attack. "We have all the reasons to suggest that Aslan Maskhadov is in the area of the operation, as well," Akhmadov said.