Shootout at the southern border of Mongolia

Four border guards shot dead three other borders guards at Southern border of Mongolia.
Lkhagvasuren, Brigadier General and Vice chairman of the Authority of the Border Troops of Mongolia said the border guards which killed three senior officers and wounded one officer of the border guard unit no.0223 were arrested today at noon. The unit is in Erdene soum of the Dornogovi aimag which neighbors China.The guards was on duty when they murdered their senior officers on the night of Nov 22, 2009. Then they took hostage of seven other border guards and drove away in truck. They were armed with four AK-47 Kalashnikovs.

Joint working group of Police and Border Troops encircled the guards near Alag mountain close to Sainshand. After negotiation, they surrendered without fight. The case is being investigated by Police of the Dornogovi aimag and Intelligence officials. The guards were 19-23 year old young men. They are all half-orphans with high school education.
The General said what led the guards to kill their superiors will be clear soon. This is not first time, killing of other guards occurred among Border guards of Mongolia. In March, 1999, one border guard of Sukhbaatar aimag shot dead three other guards and in 2000, one border officer was killed by a private which committed suicide afterwards.
The border guard of the Sukhbaatar aimag was sentenced to capital punishment. During the Soviet times, brutal system of "Deglekh-Fixing up" (training new conscripts and soldiers through beating up) was exercised in the Mongolian People's Army.Since 2000, Army generals claim the system to "fix-up" new recruits was disappeared in the Armed Forces. However, according to some researchers, the system is still exercised to certain extent in the Border Troops of Mongolia.

By Battsetseg, reporter of MonInfo News Service