World briefs

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 15, 2001

Putin makes a surprise visit to Chechnya

NAZRAN, Russia -- President Vladimir Putin made a lightning trip to Chechnya, flying by helicopter to the site of one of the Russian forces' heaviest losses to dramatize the Kremlin's commitment to fighting the rebels to the end.

Russian officials have contended for months that the rebels are close to being vanquished, but the insurgents mount daily small attacks and ambushes that bloody the Russian forces and sap morale.

Putin visited the site where 84 Russian troops were wiped out in an ambush by Chechen rebels in March 2000, state-run RTR television said. Putin laid flowers at the scene of the battle.

Russia will use all necessary force to eliminate the rebels, Putin said, adding that troops being withdrawn from the republic are only superfluous units, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

He also said he approved of measures being taken by the Russian forces.

The troops "are doing a good job in accordance with the assignments they receive from the command. I am satisfied," Putin said.

UKRAINIAN ASYLUM: The United States has granted political asylum to a fugitive Ukrainian security officer who accused President Leonid Kuchma of involvement in the killing of a critical journalist, and to the journalist's wife, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

A Foreign Ministry statement said asylum for Maj. Mykola Melnichenko amounted to sheltering a man suspected of causing significant damage to national security.

The step could complicate relations between the two countries and strengthen claims by some Russians and Ukrainians that Washington has supported the political opposition with the goal of ousting Kuchma.

Also granted asylum was Heorhiy Gongadze's wife, Myroslava, 28. Gongadze disappeared Sept. 16, and his beheaded body was found near Kiev.

Congo rebels: U.N. move a 'declaration of war'

GOMA, Congo -- The United Nations moved toward deployment of the first armed U.N. troops in a key eastern Congo city, despite rebels' warning they would consider it a "declaration of war."

Top U.N. military officials and rebel leaders negotiated late Saturday, trying to find a face-saving way out of the impasse hours before the scheduled arrival of Moroccan troops in Kisangani.

Congo's Rwanda-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy is accusing government-allied forces of violating a cease-fire with attacks on villages in rebel-held territory.

Rebel leader Adolphe Onusumba demanded the United Nations confirm and condemn the alleged attacks on civilians before U.N. troops could move into Kisangani. Onusumba called it a "matter of principle."

Yugoslav troops move into Kosovo buffer zone

MEDVEDJA, Yugoslavia -- Several hundred Yugoslav soldiers fanned out Saturday into a stretch of a zone separating the NATO-controlled province of Kosovo with the rest of Yugoslavia in another phase of efforts to quash ethnic Albanian insurgents.

The Yugoslav army's de-mining units, infantry and light artillery spread out in one part of the three-mile-wide zone, which was set up as part of a peace deal that ended NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. The alliance launched the air campaign to force former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end his crackdown on ethnic Albanian militants.

NATO and the U.N. took over Kosovo when Milosevic's forces left, and the zone was intended to put space between peacekeepers and Yugoslav troops. But ethnic Albanian militants seized much of the zone in November, killing seven policemen.

PEACEKEEPER KILLED: A vehicle manned by British peacekeepers on patrol near a Kosovo village bordering Macedonia struck an anti-tank mine that exploded, killing one soldier and wounding two others, NATO said.

Elsewhere . . .

KUWAIT INVESTIGATION: Experts have finished investigating a U.S. Navy warplane accident that killed five American soldiers and a New Zealander in Kuwait, with the findings to be released "soon," Kuwait's defense minister said.

FUGITIVE ARRESTED: Mexican police arrested an Austrian terrorist suspect described by Interpol as one of its five most-wanted suspects in the world, the attorney general's office said. Authorities detained Bassam Al Taher and his wife, Beate Graf, early Thursday in the Pacific coast town of Tonala, where the couple was living illegally. The 36-year-old Vienna-born man is wanted for nearly half a dozen alleged terrorist acts carried out mostly against companies in his homeland from 1988 to 1995.

SLAVE SHIP: U.N. and government officials worried that children stranded on what was believed to be a slave ship lacked food and water as the boat, turned away from two ports, remained in waters off Africa. The Nigerian-registered MV Etireno was thought to have left Benin's commercial capital, Cotonou, clandestinely about three weeks ago. It was unclear how many children were aboard -- reports ranged between 100 and 250 -- but government officials thought most came from Benin and Togo.

BOMB IN BANGLADESH: A bomb exploded during a celebration early Saturday, killing nine people and injuring dozens of others at an open-air concert in Bangladesh's capital.

INDIAN MASSACRE: Suspected Maoist rebels attacked a tribal village in eastern India, pulling 13 people from their homes and shooting them dead in a field, police said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but police blamed rebels of the outlawed Maoist Communist Center.

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