Russia said today it had killed more than 100 rebels in a comprehensive operation in separatist Chechnya, and that new army tactics had tightened the noose around the insurgents.
Interfax news agency, quoting military sources in the area on Russia's southern flank, said servicemen had conducted the operation in four villages in Kurchaloi district, southeast of the devastated regional capital Grozny.
Many of the clashes, which erupted in the run-up to New Year celebrations, have centered on the village of Tsatsan-Yurt.
The agency said a number of Chechen field commanders had been killed in the operation. It put Russian losses at two dead and 11 wounded.
The rebel Web site www.kavkaz.orgreported fighting still raging around Tsatsan-Yurt and said 40 Russian troops had died, with about the same number injured.
It gave no rebel losses, but said six residents had been killed and 10 injured in the latest fighting. Earlier rebel reports put their own losses at eight dead and three missing.
Russian authorities and rebels have consistently given widely varying accounts of their clashes since Moscow moved its troops back into Chechnya in October 1999 - its second post-Soviet campaign to crush separatism.
Russian troops now claim control of all of Chechnya, though almost daily attacks have brought the death toll to well over 3,000 servicemen. A political solution remains elusive, despite a first contact in November between Kremlin and rebel envoys.