Russians Renew Heavy Fighting In Chechnya Each Side Accuses The Other Of Prisoner Torture, Atrocities

Heavy fighting broke out in and around Grozny on Saturday as Russian forces tried to encircle the capital of the secessionist Chechen republic.

Twenty-five Russian servicemen died Saturday in Grozny when fellow soldiers accidentally set off an explosive device, army officials said.

Those killed in the explosion included members of the OMON, or special riot police squads, Interior Ministry troops and staff of the Federal Counterintelligence Service. No further details were available.

A pall of black smoke clouded the skies after oil refinery installations were hit overnight southwest of Grozny, near the village of Yermolovskaya. Refugees said there had been battles in the area for the last 24 hours.

The main thrust of the Russian offensive was directed southwest, to the part of the wrecked capital still held by Chechen fighters.

The Interfax news agency reported heavy shelling of rebel positions in Grozny after its stubborn defenders, at one point, appeared to have driven Russian troops back from a key road.

Apartment buildings were in flames, it said, and civilians were either fleeing or hiding in cellars.

There were also reports of clashes in villages south and west of Grozny, areas still under Chechen control more than two months after Russian troops marched in to crush Chechnya’s selfproclaimed independence.

Explosions could be heard every few minutes in Urus-Martan, six miles south of the Rostov-Baku highway, a vague front line. Bystanders headed off quickly after a brilliant white targeting flare landed near the road.

Several hundred people gathered in a field to hear an official of the pro-Russian Chechen opposition. He relayed Russian promises that UrusMartan would be spared from bombings so long as it harbored no fighters loyal to Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev.

Although Urus-Martan has kept largely neutral, Chechen refugees said they did not believe the Russian assurances.

“The Russians are a long way from here and won’t be able to tell the difference,” said Maysa Mauliyeva, 40, who fled Yermolovskaya two weeks ago.

It was hard to see how Russian forces will be able to tell friend from foe in the patchwork of divided loyalties across southern Chechnya.

Armed irregulars on both sides wear identical combat gear and carry the same weapons, except for the occasional pro-Dudayev fighter who has a green headband of gazavat, or martyrdom.

In the pro-Dudayev town of CheryYurt, a hospital nurse in clean white overalls boiled water on a smoky gas ring to treat some civilians wounded in a Russian rocket attack on a nearby village Friday.

Outside, a Russian warplane screeched low. There was a large explosion a few seconds afterward as the bomb dropped on the nearby rebel-held town of Shali.

The clashes came while Russian officials and Chechen religious leaders negotiated a possible ceasefire, with no apparent result.

The two-hour talks, held behind closed doors in Nazran, the capital of neighboring Ingushetia, were led by the Russian envoy for Chechnya, Nikolai Semyonov, ITAR-Tass said.

A team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe arrived Saturday in Mozdok, the main Russian army base just outside Chechnya.

Russian reports said the mission examined a camp where 14 Chechen detainees are being held for investigation. Military officials said 314 Chechens have passed through the camp since the war began, and 46 of them have been arrested.

Russia’s human rights commissioner Sergei Kovalyov, an outspoken opponent of the war, also was in Mozdok on Friday and Saturday to look into allegations of military brutality.

The Human Rights WatchHelsinki group said in Moscow on Friday that Russian Interior Ministry troops have tortured Chechens in Mozdok.

A Russian presidential commission, in turn, accused Chechen forces of mutilating Russian prisoners of war. It denied that Moscow’s soldiers have tortured or killed Chechens.

That denial conflicted with the accounts of released Chechen prisoners, who have told horrifying tales of brutal interrogations. One told of Russians hurling Chechens from a helicopter.