MOSCOW, Jan 9 (AFP) - Sporadic clashes continued on the outskirts of Grozny on Sunday despite Moscow's claim to have suspended a two-week-old military drive to seize the Chechen capital, news reports said.
Russian troops were engaged in low-level skirmishes to protect their existing positions, military officials told the private NTV television channel.
On Friday Moscow abruptly announced a pause in the drive to take Grozny, a top Russian commander justifying the decision by citing the risk posed to civilians from chemical weapons he claimed rebel defenders were using.
Acting President Vladimir Putin, whose onslaught in Chechnya has made him the clear favorite to win March 26 presidential elections, said Saturday the suspension would allow civilians to flee.
But analysts said Moscow could be using the pause as a smokescreen to marshal its forces for an even more furious assault on Grozny.
Russian intelligence reports meanwhile said Chechen mujahideen would launch a series of attacks on federal positions following the end of the Eid, ITAR-TASS reported.
The decision had been taken during a meeting Tuesday in the mountains attended by Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov and leading mujahideen field commanders Shamil Basayev, Khattab, Ahmed Akayev and Kasbek Makhashev, the agency said.
Chechen officials could not be contacted to comment on the report.
Meanwhile General Sergei Makarov, the newly appointed commander of the eastern front, said Sunday his forces would maintain their drive to seize Basayev's home village Vedeno. Makarov said he was in touch with local elders from the village, sited deep in Chechnya's southern mountains, who he said were disenchanted with the mujahideen.
"People are tired of the impunity with which the fighters operate," said Makarov. "Despite a certain fear, they are nevertheless accepting contact," he told NTV.
Russian forces had placed tanks, heavy artillery and armor on strategic heights dominating Vedeno and the nearby settlement of Kharachoi, he said, although thick fog was hampering operations in the valleys.
Chechen fighters had used concrete blocks to reinforce bunkers set up to defend the village, NTV reported, citing military officials.
The regional Russian military headquarters in Mozdok said some 50 mujahideen fighters had been killed in clashes in the mountains, ITAR-TASS reported, but no date or location of the clashes were given.
In Grozny, some 236 people took advantage of the lull in the fighting to escape the besieged capital, the news agency reported citing Russia's emergencies ministry.
A total of 6,675 people had fled Grozny down two "safe corridors" set up by Russia, the officials said, adding that at estimated 20,000 people remained in the Chechen capital.
Refugees who have fled Grozny complain there is nothing "safe" about the corridors, and say people using them have come under fire from Russian troops.
More than 200,000 Chechens have fled the Muslim republic to neighboring Ingushetia since the start of the ground offensive against Chechnya on October 1.
Russia has more than 100,000 men in the field backed by tanks, armor, heavy howitzers and warplanes, but the drive has stalled in the past week, notably in Grozny, where bitter house-to-house fighting has raged during a two-week drive on the capital.
Moscow ordered the crackdown supposedly to wipe out "terrorists" behind two summer incursions into southern Russia and blamed for a spate of September bomb attacks that left 292 people dead.
