Hello qurious-ga:
Yes, this was a toughie!
It is difficult to find news articles from the mid-90s online, as many
news organizations didn't even go online until the late 1990s, or
begin archiving reports until the late 1990s. (Also, many news sites
require a fee to access news stories older than about six months.)
However, I was able to find a great deal of reportage from news and
human rights organizations detailing the effects of bombing in
Chechnya, from the mid-90s through today. I found several 1999 news
reports and a 1994 BBC video clip about bombing in Grozny.
Also complicating matters: there is some question as to how many
thermobaric weapons were used in the 1994-1996 Russian campaigns
against Chechnya. (It appears Grozny was spared thermobaric bombs
until 1999.) But there's no question that much of Chechnya was
devastated during the 1994-1996 period with the use of conventional
artillery and smart bombs. It also appears that the Russians have been
using thermobaric weapons steadily in Chechnya, including Grozny, as
of 1999.
PLEASE NOTE: thermobaric bombs are also known as "fuel-air weapons,"
"fuel-air explosives" (FAEs), "bunker bombs" and "vacuum bombs."
Understanding Thermobaric Bombs:
See Wikipedia's explanation of thermobaric bombs at:
http://cp.yahoo.net/search/cache?p=Chechnya+AND+FAEs&ei=UTF-8&cop=mss&url=_c7KDnQ1StcJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapons
The August 26, 2002 edition of "Inside The Navy" reported "MARINE
CORPS EYES PORTABLE THERMOBARIC WARHEAD FOR URBAN OPS":
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020826-thermobaric.htm
"Despite its tactical advantages, the thermobaric weapons program is
not without controversy. . . . a similar weapon employed by the
Russians during battles in Chechnya resulted in the unintentional
deaths of many civilians. Thermobaric weapons have been reported as
causing crushing injuries such as concussions, collapsed lungs,
internal hemorrhaging and eardrum ruptures."
Also see this CNN Dec. 23, 2002 report "Pentagon to use new bomb on Afghan
caves":
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/22/ret.new.weapon/index.html
"'It can spread through these tunnel complexes and, in many cases, without
actually destroying them,' [Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Don] Shepperd said.
'So it'll kill the people that are in there, but it won't collapse the cave.
Then you can go in and find out what's in there, (that's) the idea behind
these, if it works perfectly.'"
Thermobaric bombs may not always destroy infrastructure, or *all*
infrastructure, but they are unquestionably deadly.
Thermobaric (Or "Vacuum Bombs", "FAEs") Used In Chechnya:
See "Model United Nations" project at the University of Chicago: "Topic B:
Incendiary Weapons":
http://www.munuc.org/del/2003pdf/DIS_B.pdf
Go to Page 11 of that document, under the header "Bloc Positions,"
then the sub-header "Russia," discusses Russia's development of
thermobaric bombs, and notes that "thousands" of Chechens have been
killed by these weapons since
the 1990s.
See a reprint of the article "A 'Crushing' Victory': Fuel-Air Explosives and
Grozny 2000," by Lester W. Grau and Timothy Smith (first appeared in the
August 2000 issue of "Marine Corps Gazette"), at the Fort Leavenworth's
Foreign Military Studies Office:
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/fmsopubs/issues/fuelair/fuelair.htm
From that article:
"Russia used thermobaric weapons sparingly during the 1994-1996 war in
Chechnya. These were employed outside the city of Grozny against
villages and mountain positions. Only the RPO-A flame thrower, which
has a thermobaric round, was used in fighting in Grozny itself. When
the fighting rekindled in the fall of 1999, Russian forces bombed some
villages in Dagestan with thermobaric bombs, but initially limited
their use. . . .
"Following a deliberate advance across the northern Chechen plains in
October through December 1999, the Russian Army closed on the Chechen
capital city of Grozny and the foothills of the imposing Caucasus mountains.
There, the advance stopped. The Russians began the new century with a
renewed assault on Grozny. The Russians continued their deliberate urban
advance and, after forty days of fighting, the smoking ruins of Grozny were
theirs. Unlike the first battle for Grozny (in late 1994-early 1995) or the
recapture of the city by the Chechens (in 1996), the Russians now used
quantities of fuel-air weapons, along with iron bombs, surface-to-surface
missiles with high-explosive warheads, massed artillery and tank fire. These
flattened large sections of the city and crushed the opposing force."
And:
"Surviving a thermobaric strike:
Units are far more concentrated in a city fight than when deployed in
the countryside. Therefore, a thermobaric strike on a unit in an urban
fight is likely to be very bloody. Those personnel caught directly
under the aerosol cloud will die from the flame or overpressure. For
those on the periphery of the strike, the injuries can be severe.
Burns, broken bones, contusions from flying debris and blindness may
result. Further, the crushing injuries from the overpressure can
create air embolism within blood vessels, concussions, multiple
internal hemorrhages in the liver and spleen, collapsed lungs,
rupture of the eardrums and displacement of the eyes from their
sockets. . . . Many of the injuries caused by thermobaric weapons are
internal and may not be initially noticed by the medic or doctor."
The Weekly Standard also reports that Russia did use thermobaric
weapons in Chechnya during the mid-1990s. In this March 2002 article,
"Sucking the Oxygen Out of a Cave":
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/005abyvw.asp
journalist Victorino Matus states "The Russians used thermobaric
weapons during the 1994-1996 war in Chechnya and in Dagestan in 1999.
According to GlobalSecurity.org, "conventional weapons could not force
out the Chechens and the Russian Army looked for other ways to move
them." The Russians ruled out chemical weapons and resorted to
'ground-delivered thermobaric weapons.' (It is believed that only the
United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom possess versions of the
thermobaric bomb.) "
Destruction and Loss of Life in Chechnya:
Bolstering your friend's assertion: On August 26,1999, CNN reported
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9908/26/russia.chechnya/
That civilians were spared in an attack on guerillas, but civilian
homes sustained some damage.
But all in all, I found mostly evidence that Chechens have good reason
to fear thermobaric, and other, bombs:
There's no question that nearly all "smart bombs" have been improved
over time, but even in the early and mid 1990s, these bombs were
capable of causing massive destruction.
See "The First Bloody Battle":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/482323.stm
At right see a box with archived video/audio clips from 1994 BBC
reports. The clip, "The BBC's Angus Roxburgh: 'Bombs are falling ever
closer to Grozny' (19/12/94)" is especially informative regarding the
devastating toll of bombing raids -- whatever types of bombs they were
-- on the city, and the anguish of Grozny residents.
In February 2000, the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW)reported that "On
December 27, 1999, Interfax [a European news agency] reported Russian forces
were using fuel-air explosive bombs in the fighting in Chechnya.The use of
fuel-air explosives (FAEs) [or thermobaric], popularly known in Russia as
"vacuum bombs," represents a dangerous escalation in the Chechnya
conflict--one with important humanitarian implications. FAEs are more
powerful than conventional high-explosive munitions of comparable size, are
more likely to kill and injure people in bunkers, shelters, and caves, and
kill and injure in a particularly brutal manner over a wide area. In urban
settings it is very difficult to limit the effect of this weapon to
combatants, and the nature of FAE explosions makes it virtually impossible
for civilians to take shelter from their destructive effect.
http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/02/chech0215b.htm
The above article goes on to detail the kinds of injuries thermobaric bombs
cause:
"Blast Injuries: Blast explosives kill or injure in three ways: with the
blast wave; with flying debris or by collapsing buildings; and by the blast
wind throwing bodies against the ground, equipment, structures, and other
stationary objects. According to a 1993 study by the U.S. Defense
Intelligence Agency: The [blast] kill mechanism against living targets is
unique--and unpleasant.... What kills is the pressure wave, and more
importantly, the subsequent rarefaction [vacuum], which ruptures the lungs..
If the fuel deflagrates but does not detonate, victims will be severely
burned and will probably also inhale the burning fuel. Since the most common
FAE fuels, ethylene oxide and propylene oxide, are highly toxic, undetonated
FAE should prove as lethal to personnel caught within the cloud as most
chemical agents."
From that site you can link to HRW's "Chechnya: Renewed Catastrophe" page:
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/russia/chechnya/
See HRW's Dec. 1999 press release on the dire conditions in Grozny:
http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/dec/chech1208.htm
And HRW's 2000 annual report on Chechnya, which includes several photographs
of bomb-ravaged Grozny:
http://www.hrw.org/annual-report/2000/justice2.html
(Click on photo on that page to bring up more photos.)
The BBC has an extensive site on Chechnya, "The Chechen Conflict," at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/europe/2000/chechnya/default.stm
In its March 4, 2002 report on thermobaric bombs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1854371.stm
the BBC notes that "Such weapons were widely used by Russian forces laying
siege to the city of Grozny some two years ago. Rather than air-delivered
bombs, the Russian army employed 30-barrel large calibre rocket launchers
firing a fuel-air explosive warhead to level the city block-by-block. The
pressure effect from the warheads killed many people sheltering in the
cellars of collapsed buildings, including many civilians. . . ."
Here are images of the aftermath of a February 2000 "vacuum bomb: in
Chechnya, along with a BBC report on the attack:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/640000/images/_644087_bombdam300.jpg&imgrefurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_644000/644087.stm&h=180&w=300&prev=/images%3Fq%3DChechnya%2Bbombing%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG
The December 18-24 2002 issue of The Village Voice notes that the
thermobaric bomb had been under-rated in public discourse, but is actually
capable of producing catastrophic damage:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0251/smith.php
"Despite publicly reported failure, the legend of the thermobaric bomb is
great. Introduced as a wonder weapon by mainstream-media lapdogs, it has
also been denounced as a weapon of mass destruction akin to a massive and
sinister Russian fuel-air explosive used in Chechnya. . . ."
This Nov. 6, 1999 CNN report details results of one bombing campaign:
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9911/06/russia.chechnya.02/
Casualties in Chechyna were so high, one hospital official told CNN, "I am
deeply convinced that a third of Chechnya's population that survives the war
will be disabled in one way or another."
In its July 10, 2000 article "Chechnya's War Continues in Silence," NewsMax,
a conservative news organization:
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/7/10/175552
reports that "The number of civilian people killed during these 10 months of
war still is a great secret but is estimated by specialists to be in the
tens of thousands . . . .Chechnya has become not only a mass grave for
people of different origins but also a test-field for new Russian weapons
systems, which federal troops use against Chechen rebels and the civilian
population. For example, last winter the Russian military successfully
'tested' so-called vacuum bombs, especially designed for the destruction of
people hiding in basements and in protected facilities."
The Institute For Democracy in Eastern Europe posted the report "The
Consequences of War For Education And Culture in Chechnya" in Sept.
2000:
http://www.idee.org/lreport2.html
According to this report, much of Chechnya was indeed leveled during
the first campaign, 1994-1996:
"During the course of the fighting from 1994-1996, not only the social
and economic infrastructure but also the foundations of culture and
education were destroyed in the Republic of Chechnya. Cultural and
educational institutions and cultic architecture (see below) again
suffered during the bombing of Grozny and other populated areas in
1999-2000.
"Before the beginning of the fighting in 1994, there were 450 general
schools, 11 vocational secondary schools, and 3 institutions of higher
education. Today, only the schools in the larger villages of the
Chechen flatlands are in working order. In the smaller villages,
schools have not been in operation since the first war due to lack of
funds. Practically all the schools in the mountains have been
destroyed by bombing and shelling over the course of the two wars. No
one is preparing to reestablish these schools: There is no money, no
suitable buildings, and no teachers."
Search Strings:
"Chechnya AND destruction"
"Chechnya AND thermobaric"
"Chechnya AND FAEs"
"Grozny AND bombing"
"number people killed Chechnya bombs"
"Chechnya bombing early 1990s"
"Chechnya bombing 1994"
"Chechnya bombing 1996"
I hope my research is of help to you. Please post a "Request For
Clarification" if you need help navigating any of the above links, or if you
need me to clarify any of the information I've given you, prior to rating my
answer.
Regards,
nancylynn-ga |
