Heavy fighting has broken out again in Dagestan just a week after Russia claimed victory over Islamist rebels. Russian TV has been showing helicopter gunship and artillery engagements and the rebels have issued a fatwa calling for the execution of Russia's new Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin, and a number of high-ranking officers.
The Chechen news agency Kav kaz-Tsentr reported that the "Sharia'h tribunal of the Islamic State of Dagestan" had adopted a resolution to kill what it described as the "principal organisers of the armed resistance against the Sharia'h of God in Dagestan".
As well as on Mr Putin, the tribunal passed death sentences on Gen Anatoly Kornukov of the Russian Air Force, Gen Viktor Kazantsev commander of the Northern Caucasus Military District, Mr Mohammed-Ali Mahommedov, the chairman of the Dagestan State Council and on Mr Said Amirov, the Mayor of the region's capital, Makhachkala.
The decree said the sentence was final and there could be no appeal. Many Chechens and Dagestanis live in Moscow. The city's police frequently stop and search people of Caucasian appearance for arms and explosives.
The fighting yesterday centred on the towns of Chabanmakhi and Karamakhi in the mountainous southeastern sector of Dagestan which had not been involved in the earlier battles.
These towns are the strongholds of the Wahhabi sect of Islam which is supported by the rebel forces under the Chechen warlord, Mr Shamil Basayev, a mysterious Jordanian known only as Khattab and a local Dagestani warrior, Mr Bagaudin Mahommedov.
Russian sources claim that there are more than 500 heavily-armed rebels in defensive positions the area and it is understood that 4,000 interior-ministry troops are present on the Russian side.
The rebels moved into Dagestan on August 7th and after just two weeks of fighting, Russia proclaimed victory. On a surprise visit to the battle zone at the weekend, however, Mr Putin told reporters it was too early to raise glasses to a Russian success.
Claims of victory, followed by embarrassed retractions, were a feature of the Chechen war in which tens of thousands of civilians lost their lives and to most Russians the TV coverage is bringing uncanny reminders of the worst period in their country's recent history.
Accurate and disinterested accounts of the conflict have been restricted by the fact that western journalists have not ventured into the combat zone because of the spate of kidnappings of westerners. The Islamic rebels, invariably described as "bandits" by Russian media and officials, have profited from hundreds of ransom demands in the past two years.
While most of the footage on Russian TV showed helicopters firing rockets at unidentified targets, sappers clearing mines and artillerymen preparing heavy guns there were also pictures of wrecked houses in what is one of the poorest regions of the Russian Federation. Refugees, mainly women, children and the elderly, were shown leaving the area in trucks, cars and buses.
