September 13, 2001
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At approximately 9 o'clock in the village of Chechen-Aul, near a local school, where classes were going on at that time, a shootout occurred between OMON Chechen Chechen fighters and members of the Chechen-Aul VF. The frightened children fled to their homes. The school building and neighboring residential buildings received minor damage. According to unspecified data, there were also casualties among civilians.
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After 13 hours, on the outskirts of the village of Starye Atagi, near the commandant’s office, unknown persons shot with automatic weapons a native of Kabardino-Balkaria, who had arrived in a truck to pick up gravel for a building under construction in the village. Khankala military base. Everything happened in front of the police, but they did not take any action to try to apprehend the killers. The unknown people, who were in a white Zhiguli car of the sixth model without registration numbers, left the crime scene without hindrance.
At night another car drove into the village. Local residents, who, despite the official disbandment of the militia in early June, patrolled the streets to prevent possible provocations, stopped her. They asked the driver, dressed in military uniform, to introduce himself and explain the purpose of his visit. Having identified himself as a riot policeman of the Chechen Republic, he suddenly pressed the gas pedal and rushed at high speed to the other end of Starye Atagi. There, on the outskirts of the village, the driver ran out of the car and ran towards the Russian checkpoint near the Argun River. About an hour later, the military arrived in two armored personnel carriers and took away the car that had been abandoned to them.
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In the village of Chiri-Yurt, the Russian military detained two schoolchildren, the Dugushev brothers, students in the sixth grade of a secondary school. On the same day, they captured Shamsuddin Munaev, born in 1962, also a local resident. All of them, as it later became known, were suspected of planting mines. On the same day they were sent to the district commandant's office in the city of Shali.
Three days later, with the assistance of the head of the village administration, they were released.
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From September 13 to 15, the village of Oktyabrskoye, Grozny district, remained blocked. All this time, under the guise of “cleansing”, the Russian military carried out searches in the homes of local residents, confiscating things and clothes they liked. From one of the courtyards they pushed a VAZ-2106 car into the street and fired at it. The reason for this was the lack of a power of attorney for management, which was held by the owner of the house, who was absent at that time. Requests from family members to wait for his return did not help.
The military detained and beat eight people. All of them were released for ransom: relatives gave a machine gun for two people, and money for the rest. When leaving the village, the participants in the operation took several oil tankers as a “trophy”. They also managed to buy some of them back for money.
From the book “People Live Here”, Usam Baysaev, Dmitry Grushkin, 2006.
