Blast in Chechnya increases tension
Blast in Chechnya increases tension
MOSCOW (Reuter): Saboteurs blew up a gas pipeline in Chechnya yesterday, triggering a fierce fire and increasing tension on the eve of solemn commemorations marking the World War II mass deportation of the Chechen people.
Pro-Moscow Chechen officials blamed the early morning attack, the second on an energy installation in Chechnya in two days, on rebels loyal to separatist leader Dzhokhar Dudayev.
There was no immediate word from the guerrillas themselves to substantiate this.
"These are links in a single chain of provocations by Dudayev's men who are striving to destabilize the situation in the republic," Abdul Bugayev, first deputy prime minister in the pro-Moscow regional government, told Itar-Tass news agency.
The pipeline attack near Sholkovskaya, close to Chechnya's border with the Dagestan region, occurred after a week of heavy fighting in the east of the territory.
Russian troops said on Wednesday they had crushed a large concentration of rebels in fighting for the eastern village of Novogroznensky.
The incident fuelled tension in the Moslem territory on the eve of today's Chechen day of mourning to mark the 52nd anniversary of the mass deportation of Chechens to Kazakhstan by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in 1944.
The Chechen interior ministry said it had put 4,000 men on alert for today and had reinforced checks at road-blocks in and around the regional capital Grozny.
Doku Zavgayev, the pro-Moscow Chechen leader, appealed to people to observe calm today and stay away from mass meetings which he said could lead to a "sharpening of the situation."
Tass said rebels kept up attacks on Russian troops near Novogroznensky, some 60 kilometers east of Grozny, despite earlier claims by Defense Minister Pavel Grachev that their forces had been crushed.
It reported particularly intensive fire by guerrillas on Russian positions near the locality of Tsentoroy and said six Russian soldiers were killed there and eight wounded in the 48 hours up to noon yesterday.
In Moscow, President Boris Yeltsin put the finishing touches to a state of the nation speech to be delivered today in which he was expected to touch on prospects of ending the conflict in Chechnya in which thousands have been killed.
Yeltsin, who sent troops into the mountainous territory in December 1994 to crush a drive for independence and has since admitted the move may have been a mistake, badly needs a peace deal to help his chances of re-election next June.
Tass said the explosion on the gas pipeline, which occurred at 5 a.m. (0200 GMT), triggered a fierce fire. The pipeline was shut down and the flow of gas coming into Chechnya from Stavropol in Russia switched off, it said.
The new attack followed an armed attack on Wednesday on an oil refinery in which one oil tank with 3,000 tons of fuel was said to have been set ablaze.
It seemed likely to increase jitters among Western oil companies who are involved in an US$8 billion international consortium that will begin transporting Azeri oil from the Caspian Sea via a Russian pipeline across Chechnya next year.
The Russian link, which goes to the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, is part of a dual-route option chosen by the consortium last year. The other link goes to the Georgian port of Batumi.