Chechen fighters clashed with federal troops and shelled a military convoy, killing at least 10 soldiers and wounding 10 others in the latest fighting in the war-battered region, an official in the Kremlin-supported Chechen administration said Tuesday. - Five of the soldiers were killed and three injured when federal outposts came under rebel fire 19 times in the past 24 hours, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Insurgents also shelled a military convoy outside the Borzoi village in the Shali region, killing three soldiers and wounding six.
- The other two soldiers died in a clash with rebels outside Bamut in the Achkhoi-Martan district, the official said. Three rebels were also killed in the fighting. A second clash near the Chechen capital, Grozny, injured one soldier.
- Russian forces pounded suspected rebel bases and groups of rebels with heavy artillery, and rounded up at least 190 people in so-called "mopping-up operations" over the last 24 hours, the Chechen official said.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said during a visit to Moscow on Tuesday that the 55-nation security organization was ready to cooperate with Russia to improve the situation. "We cannot do miracles but we have to start somewhere," Passy said, according to an OSCE statement issued after the Bulgarian’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Ivanov as saying that Russia was "ready to cooperate... We can find solutions to various problems, including the Chechen problem, only through frank dialogue." |