Fighting increases in Chechnya

Russia's military action in Chechnya has faced criticism at home and abroad

MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia has unleashed one of its biggest assaults in months on a Chechen town, Reuters has reported.

Troops and police, backed by heavy guns and attack helicopters, swooped on Chechnya's third-biggest town of Argun on Monday to wipe out what the military said were two rebel groups.

The attack occurred just hours before a European Union human rights mission flew into the rebel region to check on the human rights situation in the war-torn republic.

A spokesman for the rebels told Reuters clashes had erupted in Argun -- a large town just to the east of the devastated capital Grozny -- when the guerrillas moved to thwart a Russian "cleanup" operation to arrest suspected fighters.

Akhmed Dokayev, chief of the Interior Ministry's staff in Chechnya, told Interfax that troops had been rushed to Argun after rebels ambushed a Russian convoy early on Monday.

"There is a battle under way. There are casualties on both sides. Argun is fully blockaded," Dokayev said.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted the commander of Russian Interior Ministry forces in Chechnya, Vyacheslav Dadonov, as saying two Russians had been killed and one wounded, while an undisclosed number of rebels were killed and 10 arrested.

Rebel spokesman Movladi Udugov, however, told Reuters 40 Russian servicemen had died during the first four hours of fighting and more than 100 were wounded.

Human rights

There has been strong international criticism of Russia's military action and accusations of human rights abuses carried out by soldiers.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights voted last month to support an EU resolution condemning Russia for its "disproportionate" use of force in Chechnya and called for "credible criminal investigations" into alleged war crimes.

It was the second time the main U.N. human rights forum has condemned Russia on Chechnya.

It expressed concern at "serious violations of human rights, such as forced disappearances, extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, and torture."

Swedish Ambassador Sven Hirdman told Interfax: "What is happening in Chechnya concerns the whole of humanity because human rights are our common preoccupation."

Hirdman told reporters during a stop in Ingushetia that the mission's findings would be presented to an EU-Russia summit in Moscow on May 17, according to Reuters.

Hirdman said EU bodies had evidence of serious human rights violations in Chechnya and the organisation made a point of pressing the issue with the Russian leadership.

Russian forces were driven out of Chechnya by rebels in 1996 after two years of fighting. But they returned in September 1999 after rebel incursions into the neighbouring republic of Dagestan and a series of apartment bombings in Moscow which they blamed on the rebels.

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