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Published on: 12/1/2002
Last Visited: 12/1/2002
John Colarusso, a specialist on the Caucasus region at McMaster University in Ontario, said, "I am reasonably certain that they have or had at least three warheads."Colarusso, who advised the Clinton administration on Chechnya, said that in November 1991, Russia's former defense minister, Pavel Grachev, "sold" the Russian arsenal in Grozny to Chechnya's late separatist president, Dzhokhar Dudayev.
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Colarusso said the rebels found two more warheads in an abandoned ballistic missile silo in the Chechen village of Bamut.The missiles in the silo had been destroyed in the mid-1970s by a propellant fire, leaving two warheads lying at the bottom of the shafts.The CIA reportedly sent officers to Chechnya to inspect the weapons but never were able to confirm their existence.
Few specialists doubt that the Chechen rebels, locked in an eight-year conflict with Moscow that has claimed tens of thousands of lives on each side, have the motivation to seek more powerful weapons in their struggle.But there is debate about whether they have the desire, or the means, to resort to nuclear terror.
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Colarusso, the former Clinton administration adviser, believes the rebels' intention would be to employ any nuclear weapons they acquire as a bargaining chip.
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 12/1/2002.© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
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