Russia announced yesterday it had launched a major offensive against Islamist separatists who have invaded its southern republic of Dagestan and warned of striking their rear bases in neighbouring Chechnya.
The acting Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin, declared that the offensive to crush insurgents, who have seized several mountain villages in Dagestan, "has already begun", ITAR-TASS reported.
Sources in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, said an insurgents' stronghold in the southern region of Boltikh had been surrounded by Russian interior, defence, and police forces, who were pounding the rebels with artillery.
Nearly 200 insurgents have been killed in seven days of clashes, the defence ministry in Moscow said.
Some 1,200 fighters, according to Russian interior ministry figures, crossed from Chechnya into Dagestan last Saturday, seizing control of several villages and proclaiming the region an independent Islamic state.
Fearing a spread of the Islamic separatism that triggered its 19941996 war with Chechnya, Moscow rushed reinforcements to the area and vowed on Thursday to launch a "massive operation" to crush the incursion in the coming days.
Unveiling what appeared to be the second prong of its strategy, Mr Putin yesterday warned that Russia would attack the rebels' rear bases.
"Chechnya is a Russian territory. We will deliver strikes against any place where gunmen are based," he said. "We will do everything in our power to restore order to Dagestan and the north Caucasus as soon as possible," Mr Putin added.
In Grozny, a spokesman for the Chechen warlord, Mr Shamil Basayev, who is leading the insurgents, said a column of Russian troops and armoured personnel carriers was sighted yesterday entering Chechen territory from the southern Russian region of Stavropol.
The report was denied by the defence ministry in Moscow. The ministry also denied reports from Grozny on Thursday stating that Russian jets and helicopters had attacked three Chechen villages.
Mr Basayev is high on Moscow's wanted list for his role in Chechnya's campaign to break away from Russian sovereignty.
Interfax quoted an official with the Chechen border guard, Mr Khumid Dalayev, as saying several Russian armoured vehicles entered Chechnya "to carry out provocations" but left an hour later.
Russia and Chechnya's brutal war cost an estimated 80,000 lives, gave Grozny de facto independence and left the northern Caucasus, a patchwork of ethnic groups and religions, chronically unstable.
In Makhachkala, a spokesman for Russia's federal intelligence service said the insurgents were in control of seven of 32 districts in the Botikh region near the southern border with Chechnya.
"We are being given instructions to encircle all regions where there are still any gunmen left, so that once the main assault begins, they will not get out alive," said one Russian officer.
In Grozny, an insurgents' spokesman, Mr Magomed Tag irov, said 60 Russian soldiers had been killed in fighting while another 90 had been injured. The Russian defence ministry confirmed 11 dead on its side.
Russian federal troops yesterday said they had also located a huge weapons drop-off point used by the gunmen in the Boltikh region, Interfax reported.
The find included two grenade launchers, 90 mines and 20,000 bullets.
The raids in Dagestan have sent more than 6,000 refugees fleeing for safety away from the Chechen border and closer to the Caspian Sea on the republic's eastern shore.
Ms Judith Kumin, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said regional authorities had provided the figure, saying the civilians, both Dagestani and ethnic Russians, had fled to Makhachkala and Buynaksk.
"There may be an equal number who have scattered to villages outside the conflict area," she said in Geneva.
"Obviously, for security reasons, no international agency is operating in Dagestan," Ms Kumin said, adding that it had closed its office in Dagestan at the end of 1996.
The conflict marks the worst violence in the region since the Chechen war and has spawned rumours Moscow may introduce a national state of emergency.