Efforts Made to Avoid Unnecessary Loss of Life

　　On October 17, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that federal troops would try to avoid unnecessary loss of life in its campaign to root out Islamic gunmen from the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

　　"We will not undertake the tactics of a large-scale military action with tank attacks and the storming of towns,'' Putin told RTR state television.

　　Despite reports of fire exchanges near the village of Bamut, about 70 kilometers southwest of Grozny, the Chechen capital, Russian authorities have kept tight-lipped about the clashes.

　　Military officials denied their troops had moved any closer to Grozny. They also declined to comment on an Interfax news agency report that troops had bombed a cement plant 25 kilometers south of Grozny.

　　At the completion of the first stage of its campaign against Chechen rebels, federal forces have now taken control a third of Chechnya, mostly low-lying areas north of the Terek River. They have also secured key points in western and eastern parts of Chechnya in their drive to form a "security zone" around the rebel republic.

　　Speaking in the southern Russian town of Vladikavkaz, Viktor Kazantsev, commander of Russian forces in North Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, said there was no order to take Grozny.

　　Russian leaders have not ruled out storming the capital, although they say they want to avoid a repeat of the ill-fated war in 1994-96 in which tens of thousands were killed.

　　Kazantsev said the Interior Ministry is to play the key role in the second phase of the anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, Interfax reported.

　　He said that the federal grouping "has not carried out a single strike against peaceful villages." Rather, the rebels carried out strikes on villages for provocative purposes, picturing them as federal strikes.

　　"All of these cases are being tackled by the military prosecutor's office," Kazantsev said.

　　Kazantsev said he believed talks with Chechnya's relatively moderate leader Aslan Maskhadov were possible, but not in the coming days.

　　Maskhadov has repeatedly called for talks with Moscow, but Putin says he must first hand over guerrilla leaders like Shamil Basayev and Arab-born Khattab. Putin blames the fighters for a series of terrorist bomb blasts in Russia that killed some 300 people.

　　As they suffer major losses following the federal offensive, Chechen rebels are planning more terrorist acts in Russia, Interfax quoted the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service as saying Sunday in a communique.

　　The document said that the Russian law-enforcement bodies "are taking every measure to prevent such terrorist operations."

　　In Grozny, Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov claimed Sunday that the Russian military conceal their losses in Chechnya.

　　He told a news conference that more than 1,500 soldiers and officers had been killed, four planes and 10 helicopters had been downed, and 62 armored vehicles had been put out of action so far, Interfax reported.

　　The Chechen side only lost 32 men, Maskhadov said. Russian commanders claim that the Chechen rebels' casualties, by most conservative estimates, are at least 1,500.

　　Moscow has denied such claims and Colonel General Ilya Panin, chief of the Defense Ministry's Main Personnel Department, said that since the start of fighting on the territory of Chechnya, federal forces have lost 47 servicemen. Enditem