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Chechnya ambush deals

new flow to peace hopes

MOSCOW: A deputy prime minister in Chechnya's pro-Moscow government was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt on Tuesday when his car came under a hail of fire in the regional capital Grozny.

Local officials said two bodyguards were killed in the ambush on deputy prime minister Badruddi Dzhamalkhanov at a crossroads in an eastern part of Grozny.

The assailants lay in waiting and opened fire from automatic weapons before getting away. Police gave chase and detained two people in a forest outside Grozny after finding the attackers' car abandoned nearby, Itar-Tass news agency said.

Dzhamalkahnov was taken to hospital in a serious condition but details of his injuries were not released.

The latest of several assassination attempts on Russian or pro-Moscow officials in the breakaway region dealt a further blow to hopes of ending more than 16 months of fighting over the small Caucasus region's independence drive.

No-one claimed immediate responsibility for the attack but the previous assassination attempts were carried out by separatist rebels.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who sent troops to Chechnya in December 1994, launched a peace plan on March 31 to end the fighting which has killed more than 30,000 people.

Moscow says it has halted major military offensives in the region. But clashes with the separatist fighters have persisted.

Interfax said one Russian soldier had been killed in the last 24 hours of fighting.

Russian forces have been carrying out "special operations" in the southeast Vedeno region. They blockaded about 350 rebels at Shali, 45 km east of the Chechen capital Grozny.

Senior Russian officials have expressed doubts that Yeltsin's plan can be implemented quickly.

"I believe it will be extremely difficult to implement the peace plan," Yuri Baturin, Yeltsin's national security adviser, said on Monday after spending much of last week in Chehcnya.

He said some members of the armed forces had reservations about the plan.

Defence Minister Pavel Grachev also distanced himself from the initiative last Friday and offered to quit if parliament held him responsible for a rebel ambush on a Russian armoured column a week ago which killed up to 95 people.

Yeltsin has said ending the conflict is vital for his hopes of winning a presidential election on June 16, in which he faces a tough challenge from Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.

One opinion poll put Yeltsin slightly ahead of Zyuganov for the first time on Tuesday, but many political analysts say the unpredictable events in Chechnya could still have a big impact on the outcome of the June poll.

Yeltsin has ruled out the rebels' main demand, independence from Russia, and separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev has vowed to fight on. Indirect peace talks proposed by Yeltsin have not begun.-Reuter