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Chechens take eastern town of Nozhai Yurt: Interfax

MOSCOW: Interfax news agency quoted military sources as saying on Sunday that about 2,000 Chechen fighters had captured the eastern Chechen town of Nozhai Yurt.

Russia said in early January its troops had taken the town, near to the border with the North Caucasus region of Dagestan. Moscow says about 3,000 fighters are still at large in Chechnya, with most reportedly holed up in its southern mountains. "At the present moment, a blockade of the fighters is continuing and large subdivisions of Russian troops are closing in on the town from all sides," Interfax quoted the sources as saying.

Russia launched its military operation against the fighters last autumn after they staged incursions into Dagestan. Moscow also accuses them of staging bomb attacks in Russian cities and of trying to destabilise the whole North Caucasus region.

Putin, who has become Russia's most popular politician because of his uncompromising stance on Chechnya, said on Sunday the military campaign was going according to plan. He said he had no information on the situation in Nozhai-Yurt.

"We will use all the forces and means we have at our disposal against those who resist," Interfax quoted Putin as saying before he cast his ballot in Russia's presidential election, which he is widely tipped to win.

Russia denies report

GROZNY: Russia's Defence Ministry denied a report on Sunday that about 2,000 Chechen fighters had seized a town in eastern Chechnya on Sunday as locals and soldiers in the region voted in a presidential poll.

"This is propaganda to make the situation tense," a ministry spokesman said by telephone. He said hundreds of people had already cast their ballots in the town of Nozhai Yurt, which Interfax news agency reported had been occupied by guerrillas.

In the regional capital Grozny, armed police lined the streets to prevent fighters attacks from disrupting the vote and buses brought the elderly and ill from outlying regions to the polling booths.

Four Russian soldiers were killed and three injured on the eve of the election, and there was an exchange of fire overnight -- which has become common in the devastated capital, flattened by months of bombing.

Around 100,000 troops are fighting in a campaign that has helped make Putin the clear election favourite.

The troops have clashed with fighters across Chechnya's southern mountains. Earlier this week they unveiled a "special operation" to wipe out resistance in the key village of Komsomolskoye, where Russia says it has raised its flag.

The fighters have vowed to launch lightning attacks as they did in the 1994-96 war, which ended in Russia's withdrawal.

Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo pledged to fight back any such attempts, saying the Chechen fighters would be destroyed.

"Those Chechen fighters who show resistance will be destroyed," RIA quoted Rushailo as saying on Saturday. "We will get every fighter and take legal measures against them."-Reuters