FIERCE fighting raged in the Chechen capital, Grozny, yesterday after rebels launched a dawn offensive, seizing control of parts of the city and taking the Kremlin by surprise.
The streets echoed to the sound of heavy machinegun fire after guerillas loyal to separatist leader, Gen Dzhokhar Dudayev, thrust towards the centre from the north, west and south.
The rebels' action in Grozny piled the pressure on President Yeltsin to find a settlement before the June presidential election. Mr Yeltsin, desperate to find a peaceful solution by the June 16th poll, has called a session of his Security Council today to look at the peace options.
A local journalist in Grozny said shooting was still going on by late afternoon yesterday with the rebels apparently in control of the Minutka area, and Zavodskoi and Staropromyslov districts.
Russian troops called up reinforcements and army helicopters fired rockets at guerrilla positions in Minutka, the journalist said.
The attack followed a broadcast warning on Tuesday by Gen Dudayev. "The city of Grozny will be taken. There will be no mercy for Chechen traitors," he said.
There was further humiliation for the Kremlin in the course of the offensive yesterday when Gen Dudayev broke into a broadcast by Russian television's first channel to announce the action was taking place on his orders.
His men were under orders to take the main administrative building in Grozny, ITAR TASS news agency reported him as saying.
The guerrillas launched coordinated attacks on military posts in different parts of Grozny at about 6 a.m. The pro Moscow Chechen government said that by mid afternoon Russian forces had encircled guerrillas at Minutka and at the bus station in the Zavodskoi district.
An official of the Federal Security Service based in Grozny told TASS the situation was "critical".
A pro Moscow Chechen official, Mr Akmal Saidov, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying at least 10 Russian soldiers and civilians had been killed.
The rebels launched their attack as news spread that the Chechen field commander, Salman Raduyev (28), who led a group of rebels on a second hostage seizing raid in southern Russia in January, had died of gunshot wounds in the head which he sustained last Sunday.
The offensive was the latest in the conflict which erupted in December 1994 when Mr Yeltsin sent troops into Muslim Chechnya to quell a drive for independence.