Russian Forces Pummel Grozny As Commander Vows To Capture City
Farhan Siddiqui
NEAR GROZNY, Russia, Dec 17, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia
pummeled the rebel Chechen capital Grozny with heavy artillery and air
strikes on Friday as Russia's top commander vowed to mount a special
operation to seize the city.
After another night of bombardment, Russian gunners were blasting
Grozny Friday as helicopters strafed the city from the skies above, one
AFP correspondent just outside the city reported.
Russian forces were battling Chechen rebels in Khankala and Guikalovsky
in the eastern outskirts of Grozny.
As the clashes raged on in the sixth day of fighting since Moscow
launched its drive to capture the besieged city, foreign ministers from
the world's leading industrial powers met in Berlin with their Russian
counterpart.
They were due to hear from Knut Vollebaek of Norway, the current
chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE), who returned Thursday from the Northern Caucasus region.
"It is very urgent that we get a cease-fire," Vollebaek said late
Thursday in Oslo ahead of the G8 summit.
"Here we saw the gruesome realities of war... There is no food, no
water, no light, no heating in the city," said Vollebaek, who visited a
Russian-controlled suburb of Grozny.
Many people were trapped in the capital and unable to escape and a
humanitarian escape corridor set up on December 6 by Russian forces to
allow people to flee the fighting was ineffective. "Everybody shoots at
everybody," he added.
But the top Russian commander, General Alexander Baranov, said from his
base in Mozdok, North Ossetia, that plans were being put into force to
seize the capital of the breakaway republic, where estimates of the
number of remaining residents vary between 20,000 and 40,000 people.
"The city will be liberated, a special operation will be organized by
police forces with the support of federal troops," Baranov was quoted
as saying by Russian ORT public television.
As the Russian offensive on Grozny continued, Moscow turned its
attention to the 30-40 percent of Chechnya which remains in rebel hands
in the mountainous south.
Federal forces have seized control of the Kavkaz training camp, near
Serzhen-Yurt, 30 kilometers (18 miles) southeast of Grozny, led by
Chechen warlord Khattab, Chechen sources told AFP.
As air and artillery strikes rained down on the southeastern Vedeno
region, fiefdom of feared Chechen commander Shamil Basayev, a top
Russian general said the operation to capture the southern rebel
strongholds had begun.
"The next and no less difficult stage of our counter-terrorist
operation in Chechnya has begun, the destruction of the bandit
formations in the mountains," Russian chief of staff Gennady Troshev
said, cited by ITAR-TASS.
On Wednesday, federal forces reportedly suffered a bloody reverse when
over 100 soldiers were slaughtered in the center of the city as an
armored column was ambushed by Chechen rebels, although Moscow denied
the incident.
Reports from three different sources have said the armored patrol was
attacked inside Grozny as it advanced from the eastern outskirts by
more than 1,000 Chechen separatists armed with rocket-propelled
grenades.
Journalists said they had counted around 100 Russian bodies, and
Chechen sources cited by Interfax news agency said Friday that 102
federal servicemen had died. The sources said the patrol was on a
reconnaissance mission.
It marked the most serious casualty report since Russia invaded the
rebel republic with tanks and troops on October 1.
Russia's Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said there would be no
peace agreement on Chechnya similar to the 1996 Khasavyurt accord,
which ended the last 21-month Chechen conflict but failed to tie down
the republic's status.
Chechnya declared its de facto independence after the 1994-96 war with
Russian troops, but Moscow refuses to recognize this. ((c) 1999 Agence
France Presse)
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