Russian forces bombard rebel positions in southern Chechnya

Sunday, March 5, 2000 | 9 a.m.

Despite Russia's earlier claims to control much of the gorge, fighting continued to rage in villages in and around the canyon.

Bands of rebels in villages between the Argun and Vedeno gorges were trying to establish communications in order to coordinate a mass breakout from the mountains into the lowlands, the military command press center said.

Although Russia says much of the area between the gorges has been "liberated," the situation is "being complicated by the fact that small groups of rebels are moving into populated areas," the military press center said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russian troops on Sunday engaged about 70 rebels advancing on the town of Komsomolskoye, near the entrance to the Argun gorge. The rebel band was "being destroyed" as federal troops blocked paths of retreat to the lowlands, the military said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

The town came under intensive artillery shelling, as federal troops moved past and headed southward into the mountains.

Russian warplanes and artillery continued to bomb groups of rebels hiding in dozens of villages between the Argun and Vedeno gorges, that cut south from Russian-occupied regions in the north to rebel-controlled territories in the mountains.

Over the past 24 hours, federal troops established control over a number of strategic high points in the eastern and western districts of Chechnya, and conducted reconnaissance in the foothills leading to the mountains, Interfax reported.

According ITAR-Tass, the press center said that in the same 24-hour period guerrillas had attacked police stations in two districts of the capital, Grozny. The stations were repeatedly fired on from grenade launchers and submachine guns.

Chechen rebels have been weakened by months of heavy bombing and shelling, but are still capable of launching guerrilla attacks on the Russians.

The military command said six rebels had been captured in the fighting near the Argun since Saturday and 50 more people were being held while being investigated for "membership in bandit groups, the Interfax news agency said.

Russian forces in Chechnya routinely seize fighting-age Chechen men, accusing them of being militants. Many are sent to detention camps, where inmates claim they are beaten and tortured in order to extract confessions.

Russian officials deny the torture allegations.

In Moscow, a high-ranking Interior Ministry told Interfax that Gen. Gennady Shpigun, the ministry's commissioner for Chechnya who was kidnapped in Chechnya last March, was alive and efforts were being made to secure his release.