Chechen Market Strafed; Officials To Investigate

Prosecutors in the Kremlininstalled Chechen government launched an investigation Wednesday into a helicopter attack on the outdoor market of a major Chechen town.

Helicopters fired rockets into Urus-Martan on Tuesday, killing five people and wounding 21, officials of the Moscow-supported Chechen government said.

The top Russian commander in Chechnya, Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, denied his forces carried out the attack, but the rebels fighting for Chechnya’s independence are not known to have any aircraft.

Another Chechen town, Martan-Chu, came under Russian artillery fire Wednesday for the second day, officials said.

“My husband and I were on our way to get water,” a woman in Urus-Martan told Associated Press Television. “From nowhere came five helicopters and immediately started bombing the market.”

Two boys were killed in the market on the edge of town where about 2,000 were gathered, and another boy was killed as he sold gasoline by the side of the road less than a mile away, the Moscow Times said.

The two others were killed in an attack in another part of town, officials said.

Urus-Martan has not supported the separatists. The town, 12 miles southwest of the Chechen capital, is filled with refugees since it has been one of the few relatively safe places in the war-shattered region.

The Moscow-backed leader of Chechnya, Doku Zavgayev, told the Interfax news agency that the attacks probably were a “provocation” by the rebels.

A high-ranking representative of Russia’s army aviation said the helicopters did not intend to hit UrusMartan, Interfax reported. The official, who was not named, said the helicopters were targeting 15 trucks carrying rebels to Goiskoye, a separatist stronghold captured by Russian troops on Tuesday.