MOSCOW - Russian forces hunted "suicide fighters" in Chechnya on Monday as they broadened a drive to smash guerrilla resistance in response to the bloody Moscow theatre siege.
Interfax quoted unnamed police sources in Chechnya as saying officials expected car bombs and suicide attacks in the regional capital Grozny and the second city Gudermes.
The news agency gave no further details, but its report followed Sunday's warning by Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov that intelligence reports suggested suicide fighters were being trained in a number of Chechen settlements.
Ivanov also said he had halted the withdrawal of army troops from the region, the centrepiece of the Kremlin's strategy to portray the three-year conflict as an "anti-terrorist" operation run by police and Interior Ministry troops.
Russia tightened security in Chechnya 10 days ago, after special forces ended a three-day siege which began when Chechen separatists took some 800 people hostage.
Medical officials said on Monday the hostage death toll had now risen to 120. Almost all have died from a gas designed to knock out the bomb-wielding Chechen guerrillas, who had been demanding Russian troops quit their southern Muslim homeland.
Few details of the ongoing security sweeps in Chechnya have filtered out, but they usually involve sealing off villages and checking identity papers, notably of men of fighting age.
"People are scared, they are afraid of being caught in door-to-door checks," Shamsail Saraliyev, spokesman for the pro-Moscow Chechen leader Akhmed Kadyrov, told Reuters from Grozny. "But in general, there is not a great change in the city's atmosphere."
Such operations are frequently accompanied by complaints of human rights abuses. The United Nations has expressed concern about increased security at refugee camps which the authorities suspect provide a support network to the rebels.
Itar-Tass quoted military officials as saying 25 rebels had been killed in the current crackdown, which nevertheless failed to prevent guerrillas from shooting down a military helicopter on the edge of Grozny on Sunday, killing nine.
Police said 32 people were arrested in the past 24 hours.
MEDIA CONTROL
Few independent reports have emerged from Chechnya due to the Kremlin's tight control over media access to the region. The Media Ministry issued draft guidelines on Monday on reporting crises which could make covering Chechnya even more difficult.
President Vladimir Putin forged his political career on his handling of Chechnya and is acutely sensitive to criticism of his policies in the province.
He has refused to deal with the Chechens' elected leader Aslan Maskhadov, accused by Moscow of direct involvement in the theatre siege. Maskhadov denies any role.
To deflate Western calls for dialogue, Putin has appointed pro-Moscow Chechens to run Chechnya and suggested normal life is slowly returning. Before the siege he had floated plans for a referendum on a new constitution and fresh presidential polls.
But the hostage crisis and Sunday's rebel strike - the 40th army helicopter downed since hostilities resumed in 1999 after a three-year break - has forced a U-turn.
"The president's sharp change of position is explained by the fact that (FSB director Nikolai) Patrushev seems to have convinced him that the fighters in the republic, despite the death of (leading rebel commander) Khattab, continue to represent a serious threat, which the Interior Ministry is unlikely to be able to counter", the Gazeta newspaper said.
Patrushev, a Putin loyalist, has been in charge of the Chechnya operation since January 2001.
The Kremlin's chief spokesman on Chechnya, dismissed newspaper reports that recent events were forcing Moscow to rethink its strategy towards Chechnya.
"I don't see any grounds for serious change, never mind a fundamental change, in Russia's policy in Chechnya", Sergei Yastrzhembsky, told reporters.
Russia's latest security clampdown, which Ivanov stressed would be carefully targeted, appeared to confirm the Kremlin has slammed the door on peace talks with the rebels.
The arrest in Denmark last week at Moscow's request of Akhmed Zakayev, an aide to fugitive Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov, was seen as a calculated blow at hopes for peace. Denmark wants more evidence before extraditing Zakayev.
Russian human rights activists called on the Kremlin on Monday to hold peace talks with the separatists, despite public outrage over the Moscow theatre siege.
"Peace talks would be a better way for the organs of state to show their greatness and bravery," said Sergei Kovalyov, a liberal parliamentarian and Soviet-era political prisoner. Reuters
Source URL: http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=28779
_________________________________________________________________ Choose an Internet access plan right for you -- try MSN! http://resourcecenter.msn.com/access/plans/default.asp