–NO END TO HOSTILITIES

The Chechen Interior Ministry told the news agency Novosti on October 14 that unknown gunmen shot dead one of its police colonels as he was driving in Grozny. The NTV television network identified the slain colonel as Zhelaudi Mezhiev, deputy chief of the ministry’s investigative bureau.

Chechnya’s Interior Ministry told Interfax that in the course of a security sweep, a police unit ran into a rebel guerrilla unit, leading to a firefight on the western edge of Grozny.

In Grozny’s Staropromyslovsky district, meanwhile, a Russian armored vehicle came under flame-thrower attack. Two servicemen were wounded. Also, a policeman of a Chechen interior ministry unit guarding an oil-production facility was wounded when the unit came under gunfire.

–LITTLE OPTIMISM ABOUT CHECHNYA