Chechen rebels kill generals in helicopter attack

Guerrillas in Chechnya shot down a Russian helicopter yesterday, killing two generals and eight other senior officers in an audacious attack.

The rebels fired a missile at an MI-8 helicopter, hitting it just as the pilot was taking off from near the Chechen capital, Grozny, according to the Russian military commander in Chechnya, General Valery Baranov. "Two generals and eight colonels of the general staff were killed," he later announced.

The death of the officers, including Major-General Anatoly Pozdnyakov, the head of a general staff inspection team, is the biggest single loss among Russian senior officers since the fighting in Chechnya began two years ago.

The helicopter was taking off from the Minutka district of Grozny when it was apparently hit by the sort of shoulder-fired mobile missile that the rebels have hitherto used sparingly. Despite continuing rebel activity in the capital, this is the first time they have hit a helicopter so close to the city.

Chechen guerrillas also attacked Gudermes, the republic's second-largest city, where many pro-Russian officials are based. At least five Russian soldiers were killed in a gun battle after rebels opened fire on Russian outposts and buildings in a dawn raid. The assault was one of the most ambitious attacks by the rebels in recent months, though reports on the extent of the fighting vary widely with the number of attackers put at between 15 and 400. Residents living near Gudermes put the number of attackers who had infiltrated the town at about 100.

Sources in the local police were quoted as saying the rebels were "firing at numerous offices and federal unit and police positions". They added that the rebels were well equipped and organised. The Russian news agency RIA said: "The rebels display good knowledge of the area and the location of police units. This possibly means that some of them are local residents."

At first, official Russian sources denied that anything was happening at all but then General Baranov admitted to the press: "I just talked to the military commander in Gudermes and he was amazed to hear that bandits were attacking his city."

A Kremlin spokesman said in the morning that two Russian checkpoints had come under fire briefly but no one was injured. But, by late yesterday afternoon, the Interior Ministry was confirming that at least eight of its men had been killed and 10 wounded. It also put the size of the rebel force attacking at roughly 300 men.

A spokesman for President Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen leader, claimed the rebels had total control of Gudermes and Nozhai-Yurt, another town in south-east Chechnya.

More than 400 people suspected of helping the rebel groups had been arrested, and air and artillery strikes had been launched against regions where rebels could hide.

President Vladimir Putin claims the war with the Chechens, which led to a surge in support from his government, was won more than a year ago and that the Russian casualties from mines and snipers does not constitute real warfare. Most of the recent fighting has been in the form of mine and bomb attacks on the Russian troops in the plains below the Chechen mountains.

There is no sign that the continuation of the fighting does President Putin any lasting political damage in Russia. However, yesterday's loss of two generals and the ability of rebels to penetrate Gudermes so swiftly underlines how far the war is from being won, almost two years after Russian troops first invaded Chechnya on 1 October 1999.