CHECHEN rebels holding more than 100 hostages were given another night to "reconsider their position" after defying all calls to give up yesterday.
As President Boris Yeltsin dispatched two of his top security officials to Dagestan in an effort to end the five-day confrontation between the Russian army and the rebels at the village of Pervomayskoye, a matter of yards from the border with Chechnya, the Interior Ministry said a brief breathing-space had been agreed by local officials in talks with the Muslim fighters.
But rebel snipers fired on the Russian forces surrounding them, wounding up to four, according to Russian officials, who said the troops did not fire back. Gen Mikhail Barsukov, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Interior Minister, Mr Anatole Kulikov, took charge of Russian attempts to negotiate after the Chechens failed to respond to a Kremlin ultimatum that they surrender by 10 a.m. yesterday.
The Chechen leader, the red-bearded Mr Salman Raduyev (28), ignored threats by the Russians that their massed troops would be ordered to attack the village, where the rebels have been cornered since Wednesday.
As the deadline approached, the already formidable array of forces surrounding the farming hamlet was strengthened still further with the arrival of about 300 Ministry of Interior special troops. But when it passed with no end to the deadlock, the Russians withdrew the men and softened their tone - despite earlier making clear that they were no longer willing to strike any deal in which the rebels walked free.
Mr Alexander Mikhailov an FSB spokesman who earlier this week called for the "annihilation of the bandits", struck a far more conciliatory note here yesterday saying every effort should be made to resolve the crisis without unnecessary loss of life.
The stand-off began six days ago as the Chechen fighters were retreating from north Dagestan. There they had taken over a hospital in Kizlyar and seized 2,000 hostages in an effort to force the Russians to withdraw troops from Chechnya. They sought refuge in Pervomayskoye after being fired on by Russian helicopters as they were crossing the Chechen border - an act which they saw as a breach of an agreement that they would have safe passage home.
As the Kremlin seeks to extract itself from this politically damaging crisis, at times it has engaged in military posturing of operatic proportions. On Saturday night the Russians resorted to firing clusters of high-altitude flares above the village, which floated down through the clouds, filling the heavens with a sickly apricot coloured glow.
In Sovietskoye, the nearest village, the few Dagestani men who have not left gathered in a knot at the Russian roadblock, watched by young scowling Russian soldiers. Some of the onlookers perched on dung-filled haystacks, straining for a view of what could have been Guy Fawkes night, were its purpose not so grim.
This operation is all about pressure. Russian commanders hope that if the nocturnal bangs and flashes do not disorientate and disturb the rebels, they will at least unsettle the hostages, and make them intensify the pressure on their captors for their release.
Hard evidence has yet to emerge to back up a report that
Russian military intelligence had intercepted a radio message in which the Chechen leader, Gen Dzhokhar Dudayev, was heard to tell Mr Raduyev that he should be willing to let women hostages die.