Fighting and shelling in ArgunRuslan Isayev, North Caucasus – Russian military has banned people to leave Argun, the third largest Chechen town, some 15 kilometres east of Grozny. Armoured vehicles have encircled the town and blocked also the roads to Shali, Grozny and Gudermes as well as the motorway „Kavkaz“.
All the measures are connected to the events that took place in Argun in the night between November 8 and 9 when Russian soldiers tried to detain a Chechen armed group in one of the houses in the centre of the down.
As the Chechens put up resistance, Russian soldiers asked the artillery for assistance. As a result of the shoot-outs, which lasted almost till dawn, one serviceman of Russian interior forces was killed and another wounded, according to Russian sources.
In the morning Argun was blocked. However, people somehow managed to leave the town and arrive in the district centre Shali. They reported that the artillery shelled the town’s housing estate where five-storey buildings are located. Eyewitnesses said they saw a number of destroyed flats. |
