Russia intensifies air strikes in Dagestan

Russian jets and helicopters responded by delivering 37 rocket strikes against the rebel strongholds, the heaviest air assault since fighting began on August 7. Twenty rebels were reported killed in the raids.

Official Russian sources said bombers also briefly crossed into Chechnya to deliver hits against the towns of Benoy and Kenkhi where rebels have reportedly established bases.

A total of 44 Russian and Dagestani soldiers have died, 183 have been injured and eight have gone missing in the two weeks of fighting in Dagestan, according to the the Russian Interior Ministry.

But the Interior Ministry quoted by Itar-Tass saidlosses were greater on the rebel side. Russia’s military command on Saturday said that its forces have killed up to 100 Muslim rebels in a single day’s fight in the southern area of Dagestan, but acknowledged that the situation there remained "complex".

Russian troops managed to capture strategic heights near two villages in Dagestan earlier seized by the guerrillas, while aviation and other forces destroyed the militants’ ammunition depot and several vehicles coming from breakaway Chechnya to assist the rebels, the Defence Ministry said.The military claimed that up to 100 Islamic guerrillas were killed since Friday, but the report could not be independently verified.

In Grozny earlier, a spokesman for the rebels said 80 Russian soldiers had died in a battle for control of the village of Tando, site of fierce fighting in recent days between the Russian forces and the Muslim insurgents.

Russian Premier Vladimir Putin has said the military will go after the guerrillas even inside Chechnya. But so far,Moscow has refrained from ground operations in the republic where the Russian military suffered a humiliating defeat during the 1994-96 war with the separatists.

Hundreds of Chechen reservists were on Friday digging trenches along the Dagestan border, a Chechen defence official said, according to the Interfax News Agency.