Russian Forces Pound Rebels in Chechnya

Russian troops and police, backed by heavy guns and attack helicopters, unleashed one of their biggest assaults on a Chechen town in months Monday as a team of European Union ambassadors flew into the region to assess the human rights situation.

Troops and police swooped in on Argun, Chechnya’s third-largest town, to wipe out what the military said were two rebel groups.

“After the bandits refused to surrender, we started their elimination,” Interfax news agency quoted a military spokesman in Chechnya as saying.

Rebel spokesman Movladi Udugov said clashes erupted in Argun, east of Chechnya’s devastated capital, Grozny, when the guerrillas tried to thwart a Russian “cleanup” operation to arrest suspected fighters.

Akhmed Dokayev, chief of the Interior Ministry’s staff in Chechnya, told Interfax that troops had been rushed to Argun after rebels ambushed a Russian convoy.

“There is a battle underway. There are casualties on both sides. Argun is fully blockaded,” he said.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted the commander of Russian Interior Ministry forces in Chechnya, Vyacheslav Dadonov, as saying two Russians had been killed and one wounded, and that an undisclosed number of rebels were killed and 10 were arrested.

Udugov said 40 Russian troops died during the first four hours of fighting and that more than 100 were wounded. Both sides frequently exaggerate each other’s losses.

The fighting came after several days of violence across Chechnya, which prompted Russia to halt its widely advertised troop withdrawal and cast a pall over plans for a speedy return of refugees from tent camps in neighboring Ingushetia.

It also was likely to spark fresh fears among the visiting Europeans about the fate of the civilian population in Chechnya, one of the main areas of concern for EU human rights monitors.