Chechen Militia Leads Russian Raids on Grozny

Artillery and bombs pummeled Chechnya’s capital Thursday, and there were fierce clashes in the suburbs as groups of Russian and pro-Moscow Chechen forces tried to push into Grozny in a bid to crush the defending separatist fighters.

The Russians are using the Chechen proxies to spearhead the attacks, led by Beslan Gantamirov, a convicted embezzler and former mayor of Grozny. Gantamirov was pardoned and freed from jail by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin in October so the Chechen could take a lead role in the offensive against the rebels.

The Russian approach is to heavily pound the city with artillery and bombs, then to send Gantamirov’s militia to test the level of resistance before finally sending in Russian special forces.

As fighting in Grozny intensified, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott accused Russia of indiscriminately killing civilians and violating international law in its attacks on Chechnya.

He said that America understands Russia’s need to combat terrorism but that it should be done in compliance with international law. “And our feeling is that that standard hasn’t been met, particularly more recently,” Talbott said in Moscow after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov.

“Clearly, there are many people in Chechnya who don’t want to see their territory used as a base for operations against Russia,” Talbott said. “But they also don’t want to see themselves treated as terrorists and enemies, not to mention victims of indiscriminate killing and driving people from their homes.”

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said Wednesday that Russia controls the majority of Chechen territory. As reports of intense battles reached Moscow on Thursday, he said there were some “pockets of resistance” remaining.

His rhetoric echoes that of Russian officials in Moscow’s earlier war in Chechnya, from 1994 to 1996, when the military insisted throughout the conflict that it was mopping up pockets of resistance.

Some of the heaviest fighting is in the Chernorechye area in the southern part of Grozny.

Vakha Dakhayev, 42, a Grozny resident who fled the capital two days ago under heavy shelling and bombing, said that there was severe fighting in the suburbs and that Russian forces had made half a dozen attempts to break into the city.

He said Gantamirov’s men appeared to be suffering heavy casualties.

The tactic of using pro-Moscow Chechens to break into the city reduces the risk of Russians being surrounded and wiped out by rebels. Moscow is taking care to avoid a repetition of the disastrous storming of Grozny at the outset of the previous war, when poorly equipped and inexperienced Russian soldiers were annihilated.

Even with a gradualist approach, the task of defeating Grozny is likely to cost Russia more casualties than the earlier stages of the current war.

Apti Dudarov, 27, of Urus-Martan, about 15 miles southwest of Grozny, said Russian troops two days earlier had organized a call-up of volunteer Chechens opposed to the rebel side. The recruits joined Gantamirov’s men and were sent to fight in Grozny.

“We haven’t heard anything about them since,” Dudarov said.

Gantamirov was deputy prime minister in an unpopular pro-Moscow government Russia set up in Chechnya during the 1994-96 war. He was later jailed in Russia for stealing funds that Moscow sent to Chechnya.

Chechen rebel official Turpal Atgeriyev, the state security minister, reported fighting Thursday in several areas, including Khankala, on the capital’s eastern flank; Syuir-Yurt, to the south; the Petropavlovskoye highway to the northeast; and Zavodskoi district in northern Grozny.

After Chechen rebels invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan in the summer, Russia began bombing Chechen villages. The Russians launched a full-scale war in early October after several Russian apartment buildings were blown up, attacks Moscow blamed on Chechen rebel leaders.

The latest U.S. criticism over Chechnya follows reports Wednesday from New York-based Human Rights Watch that civilians in the village of Alkhan-Yurt had been executed by Russian troops.

A pro-Moscow Chechen official, Malik Saidullayev, head of the Moscow-based Chechen State Council, said Thursday that 41 people had been killed in the village and called for the perpetrators to face trial. The council was set up recently by the Russian government as the basis for a future pro-Moscow Chechen government.

On Thursday, the Russian government representative in Chechnya, Nikolai P. Koshman, first denied that the killings had taken place but later said an investigation is needed.

The war has caused a flood of Chechen refugees into the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia, but conditions there are so harsh for some that they are returning to their villages in Chechnya.

Khava Sasuyeva, 29, and eight others lived for two months in a pigpen in Ingushetia. A 4-by-3-yard area was separated from the pigs with wooden boards. Conditions were so tough, she returned to Urus-Martan.

“Of course, the children are scared of the sounds of fighting that come from there [Grozny], and they can’t sleep properly at night,” she said. “But it is still better here than in Ingushetia.”

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Times staff writer Dixon reported from Moscow and special correspondent Nunayev from Urus-Martan.