The invasion of militants in Dagestan. Fighting in Novolaksky district
The operation, which the militants called “Imam Gamzat-bey,” began on September 5 and lasted until September 14. During this time, government troops were able to completely regain control of the Kadar zone, in the military sense, the operation of Basayev and Khattab lost all meaning. They could not provide significant assistance to the Wahhabis in Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi, and the overwhelming majority of the population of Dagestan did not support the militants, and it was ready with weapons in the hands of defend your republic. On September 14, government forces regained control of the village of Novolakskoye, and on September 15, 1999, then Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev, reported to Putin that the entire territory of Dagestan was completely liberated from Chechen gangs.
Fight for "TV tower"
By early September, 1999 had been ousted by militants from the territory of the Botlikh District. The only supporters of the gangsters of the village of Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi, who were also a stronghold of Wahhabis from among the local population, were surrounded by federal forces. The outcome of the fighting in this area was obvious. However, the leadership of the militants decided to strike a sudden blow in the Novolaksky district of Dagestan, which had not yet been involved in hostilities. When planning this operation, Basayev and Khattab relied on the fact that the main forces of the Russian troops were involved in hostilities on the territory of the Kadar zone. The calculation they did on the speed of action and surprise, at the first stage it bore them fruit.
Detachments of militants numbering up to two thousand people, once again crossing the border with Dagestan, were able to occupy the border villages of Tukhchar, Gamiyah (Khasavyurt district), as well as Chapayevo and Akhar (Novolaksky district) and the regional center Novolakskoe. The militants managed to stop the breakthrough only 5 kilometers south-west of Khasavyurt, which was the second largest city in Dagestan. With this blow, the enemy not only tried to delay part of the Russian troops from the Kadar zone, but also still hoped to destabilize the situation in the republic itself. These plans of the militants failed, and even in the initial phase they faced certain difficulties.
Unexpectedly, the battle for the dominant height of the “TV tower” near the village of Novolakskoye turned out to be stubborn. From this height, not only the district center, but also a large part of the territory, districts and main roads, was well viewed. For this reason, in the morning of September 5 1999, the militants sent a few dozen of their fighters to a height. However, it did not work out at once, although the entire 6 man defended it - 5 Dagestan militiamen of the Novolaksky District Department of Internal Affairs headed by lieutenant Khalid Murachuev and one soldier of internal troops.
The group, which consisted of local policemen, was reinforced by one Russian machine gunner from the structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. By the sounds of shooting, which was heard from the village, the police realized what was happening in Novolakskoye. Lieutenant Murachuev managed to organize a perimeter defense and distributed available ammunition. The first attack of militants garrison "Television lights" successfully repelled dagger fire from close range. The second and third attack of militants to a height also failed. As a result, the entire 6 fighters held more than 100 militants at a height for 24 hours.
Attacks of the enemy succeeded one another, between attacks the height was processed by the fighters from mortars. In total, the militants launched 7 attacks, which did not lead to success, filling up the approaches to the height of those killed. However, the forces of the defenders were also running out. In the course of one of the attacks, a policeman was killed, the next one was wounded by a machine gunner. Two police officers who carried him out were surrounded and taken prisoner when they were withdrawing from a height. At the height, Lieutenant Murachuev and Junior Sergeant Isaev were still resisting, both by then were also injured. They were able to hold out the night. The last report from a height was received early in the morning of 6 on April 1999 of the year: “The cartridges are gone, Mutey is wounded, he is delivering grenades, I throw”. In the end, the militants were able to break into the heights and perpetrated atrocities on her last seriously wounded defenders. Lieutenant Khalid Murachuev, militants cut off his head.
The captured militants told about the details of the feat of the defenders of the height and their death in September 2000, indicating the burial places of the heroes. In that battle, he was killed and wounded before 50 members of illegal gangs. At the same time, the militants lost the day to capture the height of the “TV Tower”, having lost the effect of surprise. The battle at the height has not yet subsided, but units of the Russian troops have already deployed around the village of Novolakskoye. For courage and heroism, which were manifested in the performance of official duty, Lieutenant Khalid Murachuev and junior sergeant Muteya Isaev 31 January 2002 was posthumously presented to the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.
The destruction of the roadblock and the execution of Russian troops in the village Tuhchar
5 September 1999 of the year with the re-invasion of militants in Dagestan, they were the brutal murder of Russian soldiers in the village Tukhchar. They shot the murder on videotape, which later fell into the hands of the federal forces, and the tragedy itself became widely known. A gang of Chechen militants led by Umar Karpinsky attacked Tukhchar. The road to the village was covered by a roadblock, on which Dagestani police officers served. Slightly higher on the mountain was the BMP and 13 soldiers from the 22-th separate special-purpose brigade of the MVD of Russia from Kalach-on-Don.
Having entered the village of Tukhchar from the rear, the gang members were able to take the village police department and began shelling the height at which the brigade soldiers were stationed. Quickly enough, a grenade launcher was disabled by the internal troops' BMP, while the gunner died on the spot, and the driver was contused. The soldiers who survived in the battle fled to the village, trying to hide from the militants. However, on the orders of Karpinsky, members of his gang conducted a search, examining both the village and the nearby territory. In one of the houses, the militants found the contused driver of an infantry fighting vehicle, and in the basement of the other 5 Russian troops. After a warning shot at the house from a grenade launcher, they had to surrender.
By order of Umar Karpinsky, the prisoners were taken to a clearing near the roadblock. Here the militants executed six prisoners - one senior lieutenant and five soldiers-conscripts. The militants cut the throat of five Russian soldiers, Karpinsky personally killed one of the victims, and shot another soldier while trying to escape. Later, the video of this terrible crime fell into the hands of officers of the operational services of Dagestan. Over time, all the participants in this murder were punished. The organizer of the murder and the leader of the militants, Umar Edilsultanov (Karpinsky), was destroyed in the 5 months in an attempt to break through the militants from Grozny. Another 5 people involved in the murder were sentenced to various prison terms, three of them to life imprisonment.
Fight in Novolakskiy
In the very center of Novolakskoye, militants blocked more than 60 employees of the local police department, as well as fighters stationed in the village of Lipetsk riot police. The fighters did not lay down their arms and fought with the enemy surrounded for about a day. An armored group from the 22-th separate special purpose brigade of the MVD of Russia was sent to help the village, but it could not make it to the encircled and was stopped by militants. According to the version of the commander-in-chief of the internal troops (at that time), General V. Ovchinnikov, he personally was engaged in coordinating mortar fire on enemy positions, in order to give the surrounded riot policemen and policemen the opportunity to break through from the environment.
At that time, another version was represented by the direct participants in those battles, it was published in the magazine “Soldier of Fortune” No. XXUMX for 2 a year. That article contained a version of the Lipetsk OMON fighters about the battle for Novolakskoye. According to them, after an unsuccessful attempt was made to unlock those surrounded by a formed armored group, they were essentially abandoned to the mercy of fate. They took the decision to break out of the encirclement on their own, with no distracting mortar strike from the federal forces, they said, carried out. According to official data, the fighters of the Lipetsk riot policemen were able to get out of Novolaksky with minimal casualties - 2001 killed and 2 injured. At the same time, the total losses of the Russian side during the battle in Novolaksky officially constituted 6 people killed and 15 wounded.
In total, during a month and a half fighting in Dagestan in August-September 1999, the loss of federal forces, according to official data, made 280 people killed and 987 wounded. The losses of militants were estimated at 1,5-2 thousands of dead. However, the federal forces were able to achieve a real result only in the Buinaksk district of Dagestan, where the Wahhabi grouping in the Kadar zone was completely defeated. At the same time, in the areas bordering on Chechnya, the troops failed to encircle and destroy all the militant troops that invaded Dagestan, who after the battles in Botlikhsky (August) and Novolaksky (September) were able to withdraw to Chechnya.
Having ousted the militants from the territory of Dagestan, the leadership in the Kremlin received a choice: to strengthen the border with Chechnya and continue to repel further attacks by Basayev, in parallel with this, trying to negotiate with the President of Chechnya Maskhadov or repeat the military operation in Chechnya, in order to break the militants on their territory, solving the problem of returning Chechnya to the Russian Federation. A second scenario was chosen, the second Chechen campaign began.
[media = http: //www.youtube.com/watch? v = HEaqGbJe7jU]
Information sources:
http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=7082
http://www.vestnikmostok.ru/index.php?categoryid=17&id_item=154&action=view
http://terroristica.info/node/245
http://otvaga2004.ru/fotoreportazhi/voyny-i-goryachie-tochki/oborona-dagestana-1999
https://ru.wikipedia.org
Information