Russian Rockets Reportedly Kill 118 in Chechnya

At least three rockets fired by Russian forces slammed into a crowded market and two other sites in this Chechen capital Thursday, killing as many as 118 people as Russian troops moved to within eight miles of the city, Chechen authorities said.

The attack, which may have been designed to prepare the way for a Russian ground assault on Grozny, created scenes of havoc and carnage where the rockets struck at the market, a street near a maternity hospital and a site close to the residence of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.

“Blood was everywhere,” said Aslan Akhmatov, a 26-year-old resident who witnessed the market attack and helped aid victims. “There were torn pieces of flesh, legs and hands. Many people were alive but badly mutilated, and they were screaming quite terribly.”

At least 300 people were injured, Chechen officials said, including many who were in critical condition. In the city’s understaffed hospitals, doctors were operating on victims by the light of kerosene lamps and without running water or proper medication.

Russian officials denied Thursday evening that their forces had attacked Grozny, but Chechen authorities said the explosions were caused by surface-to-surface rockets fired by federal forces closing in on the city.

“Now it should be clear to everyone that it is not terrorists the Russians are after,” said Kazbek Khizriyev, a 42-year-old teacher who also helped take the injured to a hospital. “They are simply destroying the Chechen nation, that is all. After this massacre, they must stop lying about their pinpoint strikes and anti-terrorist operations.”

Russian forces, which lost to Chechnya in a 1994-96 war that claimed 80,000 lives, seized the northern third of the lawless republic earlier this month in what officials said was a campaign to stamp out terrorists.

Although they have produced no proof, Russian officials blame Chechen rebels for bombing attacks in August and September on apartments in Moscow and other cities that killed more than 300 civilians. Chechen officials and rebel leaders have denied responsibility for the bombings. Moscow also blames the rebels for August raids on the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan.

In Grozny, residents were quick to conclude that Thursday’s attack was intended to force the remaining civilians to flee the capital ahead of advancing Russian troops. Already, more than 177,000 refugees have escaped to Dagestan and another neighboring Russian republic, Ingushetia.

“I don’t see any other explanation than an ugly plan to scare us all into leaving Grozny so that they could enter it without a fight,” Khizriyev said.

In their latest attempt to control Chechnya, Russian forces have changed their strategy and moved much more cautiously than they did nearly five years ago when inexperienced troops attempted to storm Grozny and were slaughtered wholesale by rebel fighters.

This time, the Russian forces are in no hurry to reach the capital and are attempting to build a base of public support in the occupied zone. This week, for example, busloads of refugees began returning to villages in northern Chechnya, and the federal government began paying its workers’ salaries there for the first time in three years. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin toured the zone Wednesday and promised that electricity and heat will soon be restored.

At the same time, Russian planes have been conducting airstrikes almost daily in an attempt to weaken Islamic rebels based in central and southern Chechnya. Russian officials say they are using precision weapons that have minimized civilian casualties; Chechen officials say hundreds of civilians have been killed in the air raids.

Russian aircraft and artillery struck a number of Chechen positions across the heart of the republic Thursday, Associated Press reported, hitting villages from Tolstoy-Yurt, about 10 miles north of Grozny, to Nozhai-Yurt, about 40 miles southeast of the capital.

Col. Gen. Valery Manilov, first deputy chief of staff of the Russian military, said Moscow’s forces are preparing for the next phase of their operations.

“Our tactics are elementary,” he said. “By pinpoint strikes, we will blow away the turf under the terrorists’ feet, disrupting their supply system, their inflow of reinforcements and munitions.

“We will make the population reject the terrorists, and those [rebels] who are still alive will be forced to leave Grozny and other towns and villages,” he added. “In the forest bases where they will try to hide, they will be destroyed.”

Earlier in the week, Chechen Defense Minister Magomet Khambiyev said his republic’s forces were avoiding combat with Russian troops in open country and were waiting to fight the invaders in the capital. “We are waiting for them to enter Grozny, and then we will give them a real battle,” he said. “In street fighting, we can hurt them real bad.”

But Russian officials were vague about their plans for the city. Before the rocket attacks Thursday, Defense Minister Igor D. Sergeyev hinted that Russia might skirt Grozny entirely. “What do you need this Grozny for?” he asked reporters rhetorically. “If there is no such necessity, there will be no assault on Grozny.”

Witnesses said Grozny’s open-air market--one of the few places to buy food in the city--was full of people when the rocket struck shortly after 6 p.m. Akhmatov said he was nearby and first heard a strange sound, then saw an explosion in the middle of the crowd he estimated at more than 100 people.

“It looked as if this thing exploded right in midair over the heads of the people,” he said. “Immediately, almost everybody was lying down. Then a second later, terrible screams came.”

At the city’s hospitals, the injured and their rescuers were met with another scene of horror. Khizriyev, the teacher, said he helped carry a wounded 12-year-old boy to a hospital and found it packed with victims.

“There were so many injured people lying on the stairs and in the corridors that you couldn’t even see the doctors,” he said. “The place really looked like hell, with streams of blood everywhere.”

About 15 miles southwest of Grozny, residents of Urus-Martan said Russian planes have been dropping bombs regularly on the town since Oct. 5. So far, 57 people--all of them civilians--have been admitted to the local hospital with injuries, according to chief doctor Yunadi Dachayev. He said 22 patients died, some from the shock of undergoing surgery without anesthesia.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Ground Troops Close In

Russian rockets pounded the heart of Grozny on Thursday as ground troops advanced near the capital. At left, northwest of Grozny, Russian soldiers load ammunition.

BACKGROUND

In 1994, three years after Chechnya declared independence, Moscow sent in troops, and the 20-month war killed an estimated 80,000. Russia sent troops back in this fall after Islamic rebels based in Chechnya raided neighboring Dagestan.

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Special correspondent Nunayev reported from Grozny and Times staff writer Paddock from Moscow.