A brutal exodus from Grozny
By Daniel Williams (WASHINGTON POST)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/369298.asp


SAMASHKI, Russia, Feb. 12 Heda Yusupov, mother of two and a cook for a
group of Chechen rebels, froze in her tracks when she heard the first land
mine explode. It was night, and she and a long file of rebels were making a

dangerous retreat from Grozny, the Chechen capital, during the final hours of a
brutal Russian advance.
ANOTHER EXPLOSION. Her children, ages 9 and 10, screamed.here were murmurs of
panic. Volunteers were needed to move to the
ront of the column, replacing those who had stepped directly into the
killing field.
A figure came out of the darkness.
"See you in paradise," the
volunteer said. "God is great."

The exodus through the minefield, which claimed the lives of scores
of rebels, marked a major turning point in the five-month battle for
Chechnya. With the Russians now in control of the destroyed capital,
the separatist rebels have vowed to shift the battle to the southern
mountains, and Russian forces are trying to root them out.

Yusupov is one of the first survivors of last week's perilous retreat
to emerge and provide an account not only of that journey but also of life
in Grozny behind rebel lines during months of bombardment by Russian
forces. The pullback from the capital left the rebels bruised and battered,
Yusupov said, but they have regrouped.

Today, fighting continued south of the city, as Russians closed
roads in the plains southwest of the capital and heavily bombed the
Argun Gorge, a main southern transit route. Meanwhile, Chechen
President Aslan Maskhadov, speaking by way of videotape from the
highlands, proclaimed, "Today we are launching a large-scale guerrilla
war in the mountains, the lowlands, in every village, wherever we can"
Recruited in November to cook in a rebel bunker downtown,
Yusupov said about 40 guerrillas usually crowded the basement,
rotating through the city in shifts of three days on duty, three days off.
Food, largely barley and flour, came from reserves. Vegetables and
meat were donated.
On one occasion, a Chechen singer came and gave an impromptu
guitar concert of patriotic and folk tunes, but otherwise, amusements
were few.

HEAVY TOLL ON REBELS

Speaking today in this town 16 miles west of Grozny, Yusupov said
Russian bombing took a heavy toll on the fighters. Sometimes they
were buried in unmarked graves; other times, when shelling made
digging dangerous, comrades simply fashioned makeshift tombs by
piling rubble on the corpses.
The Russians slow squeeze of Grozny, the relentless air and
artillery strikes and the shrinking supplies of food forced the rebels to
retreat, Yusupov acknowledged. But she insisted that Chechen sp
irits
are intact. "We are stubborn," she said. The order to withdraw from Grozny came
from Isa Munayev, the top
rebel commander in the city. Two Mondays ago in the middle of the
night, thousands of fighters began to head west and south. Yusupov
group went toward Alkhan-Kala, three miles from the city. The column
included units under the command of Shamil Basayev, a notorious rebel
commander whom Russia considers a deadly terrorist.
Yusupov's group of 150 shuffled warily in the middle of the column of
several hundred guerrillas. She heard artillery shells blasting the fields
that lay between the city and Alkhan-Kala. Then they came upon the
mines. "It was scary," she said. "The first thing I did wasto try to calm the
children. "

Yusupov wove her way among dead and wounded rebels sprawled
on the snowy plain. "I had to bandage fighters as we went. We couldn
wait for a safe place," she said, wringing her hands at the memory.

With explosions lighting up the snow all around, commanders urged
everyone forward. Some commanders took the lead. Basayev lost a foot
to a mine. Lecha Dudayev, another commander, was killed scouting for
mines, Yusupov said. But rebel leaders insist that except for Basayev's
other guerrilla columns escaped Grozny without incident during
the weeklong exodus.

Finally, the group arrived in Alkhan-Kala. The wounded filled an
austere and understaffed hospital. Others among the injured lay outside
in the cold. Clusters of exhausted rebels took refuge in basements
throughout the town. A day after the desperate arrival in Alkhan-Kala,
Russian forces began to bombard the town.
Russian artillery and helicopters blasted several other hamlets
where rebels took refuge: Yermolovsky, Samashki, Zakan-Yurt and
Shaami-Yurt. A hospital at Achkhoi-Martan filled up with wounded
civilians. Some civilians, who had just returned home at the urging of the
Russians, fled again.
Yusupov departed Alkhan-Kala the night of Feb. 4, in the company
of guerrillas. She left her children with friends from Samashki and began
to search for her husband, Musa.
When fighting resumed last fall, Musa, an oil equipment factory
worker and veteran of the 1994-96 Chechen war, joined his old unit,
which took up positions in the south of the city. She has not seen him for
a month. But if he has made it to the mountains, she intends to follow
him. "I will go to be with him," Yusupov said.
"We share the same opinion
about the war. We have to be free of the Russians."

BODIES LIE IN STREETS

Bombs have followed Yusupov every step of her search for her
husband. Samashki was shelled the first few days of this month.
Artillery ringed and bombarded Gekhi-Chu, near the foothills of the
Caucasus Mountains. Yusupov spent the past few days in Katyr-Yurt,
which was heavily shelled. She, along with several refugees, said that
as late as today the bodies of civilian victims lay in the town's
streets,
which are cluttered with bricks and roofing materials. "It was like a
scythe went through the town," she said.
This morning, she returned to Samashki to look in on her children,
Magomed, 10, and Marka, 9. They have trouble sleeping and start at
sudden sounds. "will never be the same," she said.
Overhead today, an observer plane droned by, the whisper of attack jets
followed, and in the distance, artillery thudded into the hills.
Yusupov will soon leave Samashki on her quest for her husband.
Russian checkpoints don't deter her- "I swear at the Russian soldiers."
And danger seems to be far from her mind.

""What is there left to be afraid of?" "What else can happen?"

2000 The Washington Post Company
ivari
e-mail: ivari@...


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