Russian troops blockaded a Chechen town today and fired heavily into a house holding a group of rebels, killing some, local sources said.
Local residents said the streets of Argun, about 10 km (6 miles) east of the capital Grozny, were deserted and all roads out of the town had been blocked.
"Among the rebels who are probably hidden in one of the houses on Argun's central street, there are killed and injured," said a Chechen interior ministry source in Grozny.
The army command in Chechnya said six rebels had been killed in the town, local news agencies reported. The storm came on the same day President Vladimir Putin told his security forces to do more to end the Chechen war, which has dragged on for a decade with no clear end in sight.
Troops and police die daily in attacks by rebels who ruled an independent Chechnya for three years until Putin sent forces back to the mountainous region in 1999.
A local resident said warplanes were soaring over Argun, but had not fired on the town.