Putin says Russia has taken Chechen capital

Putin: " We can say the operation to liberate Grozny is over"

Rebels say they're ready to fight for 50 years

In this story: Fighting continues in the mountains Basayev foot amputation televised Civilians cower in ruins of Grozny Report: Chechen civilians deliberately killed RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

MOSCOW -- Acting President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia's military operation to take control of the Chechen capital of Grozny -- now a blasted ruin -- is over and that the last rebel holdout has fallen.

VIDEO CNN's Matthew Chance reports on the human cost of Russia's takeover of Grozny. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K     GALLERY Take a tour of the smoldering remains of Grozny     MESSAGE BOARD The battle for Chechnya

"As far as the situation in Chechnya goes, I can say the following. A short while ago, the last bastion of resistance of the terrorists was seized, the Zavodskoi district of Grozny," Putin said, according to the ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agencies.

He said the Russian flag has been hoisted over the district's administrative building. "So we can say the operation to liberate Grozny is over," he told ORT television.

Valery Manilov, first deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, said on Saturday about 1,000 guerrillas still are lying low in the key city of Grozny. RIA news agency repeated the estimate on Sunday but said the remaining rebels don't pose a major problem.

The Associated Press reported that about 2,000 Chechen rebels who made it out of Grozny last week were regrouping in villages southwest of the capital on Sunday and heading toward the mountains in the south where thousands of their comrades are holed up.

The rebels say they will now engage in a guerrilla war with Russian troops.

Russian military commanders said warplanes and helicopters flew more than 50 missions over the past 24 hours, attacking suspected rebel camps in the Argun and Vedeno gorges that lead to the mountains.

Russian forces and Interior Ministry troops Sunday were searching the villages south and southwest of Grozny where rebels were believed to have holed up.

Many Chechen rebels were driven out of the capital and are now positioned in the mountains

ITAR-Tass quoted the Russian military command as saying about 250 rebels tried to escape the settlement of Shaami-Yurt overnight, but were stopped by Russian troops who killed 150 of them.

Among the rebels who managed to escape Grozny last week was Chechen field commander Shamil Basayev, who was injured as he crossed a minefield. Basayev, Russia's most-wanted man, was taken to the mountains after his foot was amputated last Monday in an operation shown on Russia's NTV television.

Reuters Television also showed the operation.

The bearded, shaven-headed Basayev, who has spearheaded Chechen resistance to Russia's offensive, had the surgery under a local anaesthetic. Reuters reported he lay impassively as the doctors operated with only the most primitive of surgical tools.

But the operation doesn't appear to be keeping Basayev on the sidelines.

Interfax reported that Basayev and another top Chechen commander, Vakha Arsanov, have announced the start of "total military actions on the whole of Russian territory."

The two men, in a statement on Chechnya's separatist television channel, also claimed enough support and military hardware to wage their struggle against Moscow "for 50 years."

In Moscow, police said they had stepped up patrols after receiving information that bomb attacks were planned by supporters of the Chechen fighters. Moscow blames the rebels for a series of apartment bombings last fall that killed about 300 people in Moscow and other Russian cities. The rebels deny the charge.

Russian troops entered Chechnya in September after the bomb blasts and after Chechen-based militants invaded the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan.

Grozny residents who were too old or too weak to flee the fighting still are there -- hiding in basements.

"I'm the oldest here and I'm a burden to the others. My son was killed and the only reason I stayed was to bury him," said one elderly woman.

Hospitals in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia say there has been a renewed flow of injured civilians arriving from the war zone.

"The people who brought in these two little girls said a mortar shell had exploded near them," said a medic of two sisters who were barely alive. "Their parents, their mother and father, were killed, as well as their little brother."

The war has driven an estimated 250,000 civilians out of Chechnya. Western countries and human rights groups accuse Moscow of using excessive and indiscriminate force in the region.

There are still many civilians hiding in the basements of Grozny

The New York Times quoted the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch on Sunday as saying it had documented 22 cases in which Russian troops had allegedly killed Chechen civilians either to avenge losses in fighting with rebels or to loot Chechen property.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow. Coverage of the war has been impeded by the Russian military.

European Union Development Commissioner Poul Nielson flew to the North Caucasus region on Sunday to check on efforts to help the refugees.

Russia's top representative in Chechnya, Nikolai Koshman, told ITAR-Tass it will take a long time to rebuild Grozny and that the second-biggest city in the region, Gudermes, may function as a makeshift capital in the interim.

"Today there is no money (for reconstruction)," ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying. "First we must study the scale of the destruction and then we can speak about the future of the Chechen capital."

In other developments, news agency RIA reported that Russian forces in Chechnya have captured a rebel leader accused of leading a gang of kidnappers. Kidnapping people for ransom was a lucrative pastime for criminal bands in Chechnya before the war.

Correspondent Matthew Chance, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Russia may withdraw some troops from Chechnya
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February 3, 2000
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February 2, 2000
Rebels say they left Grozny after 3 key leaders killed
February 1, 2000
Russia appears in control of Grozny's Minutka Square
January 31, 2000

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