Russia claims success in one part of Dagestan

The troops were conducting quot;mopping upquot; operations today, searching for mines, abandoned weapons and other potential hazards in the two villages, Karamakhi and Chabanmakhi.

The villages were the strongholds of a group of Wahhabis, a fundamentalist Islamic sect that had driven out secular authorities and imposed its rigid version of Islamic law for the past year.

Militants have left the villages and many were believed to be hiding in a nearby gorge, according to military spokesman Gennady Alyukhin.

Four Russian troops were killed in yesterday8217;s battle, and Russian soldiers found the bodies of 10 more troopers who had been missing, the spokesman said.

The Muslim militants are seeking to create an Islamic state in southern Russia and have been battling Russian security forces in Dagestan for more than a month.

With the Russians in control of one front, they will now focus their attention on Western Dagestan, where the rebels still hold several villages captured when they invaded from neighbouring Chechnya at the beginning of the month.

Fighting was reported in and around four western villages on Tuesday and war planes were again bombing rebel positions, the military said.

A top rebel commander threatened yesterday to take the campaign elsewhere in Russia.

quot;From now on we will not only fight against Russian fighter jets, tanks and such,quot; a Jordanian warlord who goes by the name of Khattab told the Associated Press. quot;Let Russia await our explosions blasting through their cities.quot;

Some Russian officials believe the fighting in Dagestan is linked to a blast at a Moscow apartment building on Thursday that killed more than 90 people.

However, Khattab8217;s chief partner in the fighting in Dagestan, Shamil Basayev, said yesterday that the militants he commanded were not responsible for last week8217;s attack.

The Russians say hundreds of rebels have been killed since fighting in Dagestan began in August, though the militants say the claim is exaggerated.

The Russians have lost more than 150 Interior Ministry troops, with at least 645 wounded, since the start of the fighting. The figures do not include Defence Ministry forces, which have also taken part in the battles.