Russian strikes on Grozny continue, oil depot hit

GROZNY, Jan 15: Russian warplanes bombed Grozny on Saturday, setting ablaze an oil depot at the main refinery that spewed thick black smoke over the battered Chechen capital, reports AP.

Russian soldiers continued to pound the city with artillery and mortar fire, and heavy fighting was reported at a canned meat factory and several other parts of the city.

The Interfax news agency quoted Russian military authorities as saying 180 bombing raids had been carried out over the past 24 hours, including raids over Grozny, Argun and Vedeno in the mountains.

Isa Munayev, the rebel commandant in Grozny, said 28 Russian scouts were killed in the city Saturday morning. Russia claimed it had killed 58 rebels from a group trying to make its way overnight Friday from Grozny to Chechen bases in the southern mountains, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Russia on Friday had launched heavy air and artillery strikes on Chechen rebel positions and claimed to have killed scores of fighters. The Defence Ministry sharply denied media reports of growing Russian casualties.

Russia claims to have regained its momentum after its offensive in Chechnya stalled early this week in the face of rebel attacks on Russian-held towns and fierce resistance by fighters Grozny.

Despite the Russian reports of high rebel deaths, news media have begun increasingly questioning the Chechnya offensive amid reports of a sharp rise in Russian casualties.

Russia generally has reported only a few deaths each day, but this week reports surfaced of tens of soldiers dying daily.

In a press release, the Defence Ministry called media reports of higher casualties "conscious lies."

Also Friday, a leader of pro-Moscow Chechens, Malik Saidullayev, reached agreement with rebel field commanders to surrender the area around Nozhai-Yurt, a sizable village in the southern mountains where many rebels are based, Interfax reported.

Nonetheless, rebels were showing apparently high morale and a commander said Grozny was far from falling.

"Grozny is an ideal place for street fighting; it is possible to defend it for years," rebel commander Khizir Khachulayev said. "Russian soldiers will find their death here."

Guerilla attacks by rebels in Grozny's streets severely bloodied Russian troops in the 1994-96 war and Russian forces have not entered Grozny in large numbers. Instead, Russia has hammered the city with bombs and shells for months to weaken the rebels, and sent in small groups of soldiers to pick off remaining fighters.

The strategy has left much of the city in ruins. All industrial areas of the city are shattered and the remaining residents are huddling in basements.

A top Russian commander, Lt Gen Gennady Troshev, said Friday that federal forces are preparing to step up the ground campaign in Grozny with "thoroughly trained storm forces."

The rebels show no sign of giving up.

A helicopter carrying Troshev, deputy commander of Russian forces in the North Caucasus, was fired on and seriously damaged while flying near Grozny on Friday, but no one aboard was injured, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported, citing military sources.