MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian forces claim to have surrounded Chechnya's most feared mujahideen in the south of the republic, and some Russian leaders are repeating their hopes for a rapid end to their onslaught, which is now in its fifth month.
Chechen fighters cornered deep in the republic's rugged southern mountains were allegedly trying to break through into neighboring Georgia to escape advancing Russian forces. Among them were President Aslan Maskhadov, the badly injured warlord Shamil Basayev and Jordanian field commander Khattab.
But acting President Vladimir Putin vowed there would be no relief for the trapped Muslims, and gave his top generals an incentive to finish the job by rewarding them with promotions.
"Today we can say for sure that the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya will be carried through to its logical conclusion - to the full liberation of the Chechen and other Russian territories on which the bandits are still dug in," said Putin.
"The last months have been a decisive turning point for the armed forces and for the Russian authorities as a whole," he said after promoting army Generals Viktor Kazantsev, Gennady Troshev and Vladimir Shamanov, as well as air force commander General Anatoly Kornukov.
Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev announced the promotions at a parade in Grozny, and said the job in Chechnya was almost done "The final phase of the operation to destroy the armed terrorist groups, which are trying to bring down Russia, is approaching completion," said Sergeyev in the capital Grozny.
The major theater of conflict is currently deep in the Argun gorge, which runs from the Russian-held plains of northern Chechnya through Chechnya's southern mountains and down towards Georgia.
Russia insists there is no way out for the resistance, who are concentrated around the town of Shatoi in the heart of the gorge. "The Argun gorge is completely blocked and the noose is being tightened," said the Kremlin's Chechnya spokesperson Sergei Yastrzhembsky.
Exhausted villagers who recently left Shatoi on the Ingushetian border said there were still tens of thousands of civilians in the Shatoi region in a desperate state. "They are shooting at everything that moves," said a man who identified himself only as Hussein. "The fighters never come down to the villages. But warplanes and artillery still shoot, killing 10 or 15 people every day."
"People are starving there," added Yakha, 49. "There is no flour, nothing, the reserves have run out."
Chechen forces were testing Russian lines near the border to try and open a corridor for the resistance to escape, agencies quoted the Russian military command as saying.
"Such activity of the rebels is linked with creating a corridor for bringing a string of field commanders and mercenaries to the neighboring territory," the AVN military news agency quoted a Russian HQ spokesperson saying.
But despite the signs of a resistance retreat in southern Chechnya, Russian forces are on their guard as an emotive Chechen historical date approached. Wednesday marks the anniversary of the Soviet-era mass deportation of the Chechen people, and some Russian military officials have warned that the day could witness fierce resistance acts.
Police discovered more than a ton of explosives in Chechnya 's second city Gudermes, while isolated resistance attacks targeted a police station and an army post overnight in two smaller Chechen towns.
"There are still Chechen fighters" in Grozny, one officer near the Chechen capital said. "They are concealed in special hiding places, and we can expect them to stir things up on February 23." But locals were doubtful of suggestions that the fighters would use the anniversary to mount a counter-attack.
"This deportation was terrible, an enormously miserable event for the Chechen people, but after these events all that has been forgotten," said Sultan, a Grozny local. "The Stalin deportation was nothing compared to this anti-terrorist operation of Putin."
