Grozny ballistic missile attack
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The Grozny ballistic missile attack was a series of a devastating Russian ballistic missile strikes on the Chechen capital Grozny on October 21, 1999.
The attack killed 282 people according to the Chechen estimate (at least 137 according to the HALO Trust count [1]) and injured roughly 400. Most casualties were civilians, some of them killed in a missile-struck hospital.
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[edit] The attacks
The cluster munition explosions occurred in several areas of the capital, mostly in the downtown area including the crowded outdoor marketplace. Other targets included the city's only functioning maternity hospital, located near a Chechen presidential palace building (the palace itself was not hit in the attack), and the mosque in Kalinina, a suburb of Grozny. [2]
About 35 people died at the hospital, including 13 mothers and 15 newborn babies. In Kalinina, 41 out of the 60 people who gathered for evening prayer were killed.
Most of the casualties occurred in the central market, which was filled with hundreds of shoppers at the time of the attack, including Chechens, ethnic Russians and Ingush. During this time, a rain of large shrapnel showered the market, nearby streets, and open air cafes, with each blast affecting large areas.
Some time after the first attack, the second wave of missiles fell about 200 meters from the bazaar. Among the victims was Supian Ependiyev, the first journalists reported to be killed while covering the Second Chechen War.
[edit] World reaction
The United States, the United Nations, and the European Union cautiously condemned the attack. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said it was "certainly troubling to see this kind of loss of life."
The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement in which he expressed his "strong hope that special care is taken to avoid innocent civilian casualties in the current conflict and that the provisions of humanitarian law in armed conflict are respected." [3]
[edit] Responsibility
U.S. spy satellites (reportedly the Defense Support Program) tracked several Russian short-range ballistic missiles launched from the Russian city of Mozdok some 60 miles northeast of Grozny. The missiles are believed by western intelligence analysts to have been SS-21 Scarabs. [4]
After days of denying responsibility, including remarks by the Russia's then-prime minister Vladimir Putin (saying the explosions were the result of a "clash between gangs"), Russian spokesman said the busy marketplace was targeted in a "special operation in which no artillery or aircraft were involved" because it was used by rebels as an arms bazaar. [5]
However, according to the Human Rights Watch, the possibility of arms merchants in the bazaar did not justify "the tremendous amount of force" used against the market.
According to HALO Trust:
Grozny market . . . is a great sprawling area of wooden stalls laid out each morning and packed away in the evenings. It is the equivalent of all your department stores rolled into one. Thus you can buy fresh bread, a TV set, a wedding dress, a bag of nails, and an AK-47 in one open area the size of a couple of sports fields. Each section is clearly demarcated and the area where weapons are sold is very small and set right against the edge. The center of destruction was in the central zone some 150m away from the area set aside for selling weapons. It was right over the clothes and food section. With the use of such munitions in such an area it was impossible not to have foreseen massive collateral damage. [6]
The HRW concluded:
Although there is some evidence that there may have been legitimate military targets located near or within the Grozny bazaar, the size and extent of the blasts, combined with the large number of noncombatants in the immediate vicinity, strongly suggests that the Russian attack was grossly disproportionate.
According to the Major General Vladimir Shamanov, Russian top commander in Chechnya, as well as president of Ingushetia, Major General Ruslan Aushev both said the decisions to attack were "made at the very top."
