Moscow to press on with Chechnya military campaign

resistance in Chechnya and stepped up artillery and mortar fire on

Grozny, the rebel region's capital.

Russian forces shelled the city from outlying positions, setting

residential buildings ablaze, but failed to break the grip of rebel

fighters on the central area.

Large numbers of paratroopers were reported moving towards Grozny,

raising the prospect that Russia planned a major new assault on the

city.

President Boris Yeltsin told Russia's security council, his powerful

inner circle, that he wanted a date set for wrapping up military actions

in Chechnya to clear the way for interior ministry troops to take over

policing operations.

The council later said peace efforts should not be abandoned but that

all attempts at negotiating with the tiny southern region so far had

failed.

''In these conditions, without abandoning efforts to seek a political

settlement, it is vital as soon as possible to overcome armed resistance

and wipe out illegal armed groups in order to restore constitutional

legality,'' the statement said.

In a hint at disorganisation in the operation, it said: ''It is also

important to eliminate a certain lack of coordination between actions of

the military and measures by other ministries and departments to

consolidate the results of these actions.''

The statement made clear there would be no let-up in the military

campaign, despite Yeltsin's order on Wednesday to halt bombing raids on

Grozny and growing domestic and international pressure to halt the

bloody conflict.

In new pressure to end the fighting, US administration officials said

President Clinton had approved a letter to Yeltsin expressing concern

over Chechnya.

Deputy White House press secretary Ginny Terazano did not say Clinton

had sent a message to Yeltsin but told reporters: ''We have expressed at

high levels our concerns about what's going on in Chechnya and trying to

limit the loss of life.''

In The Hague, the Dutch foreign ministry summoned the Russian

ambassador to protest at the use of ''disproportionate'' force in

Chechnya and to call for peace talks.

In Grozny, hundreds of Chechen fighters were roaming the centre in

groups of 30 or 40, despite the heavy shelling. Many residential

buildings were on fire or had been destroyed.

Artillery and mortar fire rained down but there was no sign of close

combat near the centre of the city, which had a population of 400,000

before most of its inhabitants fled.

The presidential palace of Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev remained in

Chechen hands. Dudayev himself was reported by Interfax to be in an

emergency command post in mountains south of Grozny.

In Moscow, Russian deputy prime minister Sergei Shakhrai said Russia's

fate depended on how the crisis was resolved.

''(The crisis) might have reverberations that could erase Russia from

the map as an independent player in world history,'' he wrote in the

government daily newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Yeltsin sent thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks to Chechnya on

December 11. The army launched a tank-led assault to take Grozny on

December 31, but it has met fierce resistance.

Russia's Interfax news agency said at least 256 Russian troops had

been killed in Chechnya by tonight. They included 116 soldiers from the

land forces, 100 paratroopers and 40 interior ministry troops.

Chechen casualties are not known but unofficial reports have put the

combined death tolls in the hundreds or even higher.

The rising death toll is one of the key factors prompting calls for an

end to fighting in the mainly Muslim region of about one million people.

The other is the bombing raids which have killed many civilians and

caused outrage.

Yeltsin said he wanted ''absolutely clear information'' from defence

minister Pavel Grachev on whether the army had complied with the order

to stop bombing Grozny.

''This was announced to the entire world and all of Russia knows about

it but there is information they (the bombings) have not been stopped,''

he said, referring to unconfirmed reports that bombing had not halted.

Interfax quoted a member of the Russian parliament, Aivars Lezdinsh,

as saying a paratroop division was heading for Grozny from a Russian

headquarters at Mozdok, outside Chechnya. A division usually has several

thousand soldiers.--Reuter.