14 Russian Troops Killed in Dagestan Clash With Rebels

A shootout with Islamic militants at a police station left 14 Russian troops dead Monday, even as residents of the southern republic of Dagestan became increasingly angry that federal forces have failed to oust the rebels despite a month of fighting.

The militants, seeking an independent Islamic state, have battled Russian troops since seizing several villages in Dagestan on Aug. 7. Government troops responded with air and ground attacks, pushing the rebels out of some areas.

But renewed violence in recent days has made clear that the militants are still intent on attacking Russian targets and are not the beaten force that the Russian military leadership has described.

President Boris N. Yeltsin on Monday called the fighting in Dagestan “a real threat to Russia’s integrity,” spokesman Dmitri D. Yakushkin said on Russian television. Yeltsin feels that the 1994-96 war in the neighboring republic of Chechnya was “one of his big mistakes,” and he doesn’t want to repeat it, Yakushkin said.

Yeltsin ordered Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin to meet top security officials today to discuss the crisis, focusing on measures needed to maintain order.

In Buynaksk in central Dagestan, the death toll reached 52 in a Saturday night bomb attack that demolished a building housing Russian military families, Russian news agencies reported.

In Novolakskoye, western Dagestan, at least 14 members of the government security forces were killed in heavy fighting late Sunday and early Monday. The rebels surrounded the police station late Sunday night, and a shootout lasted for hours until a Russian armored column was able to reach the station.

The Russians again appeared to be caught off guard by the latest actions of the rebels, who crossed over from breakaway Chechnya.

Meanwhile, a woman died of burns suffered in a bomb blast at an upscale shopping mall next to the Kremlin, officials said Monday.

The 26-year-old Russian woman, whose name wasn’t released, died Sunday of burns that covered 50% of her body. She was one of 41 people injured in the blast.

An anti-consumerism group and an Islamic fundamentalist movement both claimed responsibility for the Aug. 31 bombing.