Chechen president `flees palace'

Grozny (agencies) - Fierce fighting was raging around the presidential palace in Grozny last night as Russian forces pummelled Chechen positions with tank shells and rockets.

The Russian government claimed the rebel president, Dzhokhar Dudayev, had fled the palace and taken refuge in a bunker on the outskirts of the capital with his bodyguards.

But Russia's independent TV network, reporting from the bunker, said the president was not there. It said there was fierce house-to-house fighting in some areas, with Russian tanks in the centre of the city cut off from their motorised infantry support.

The Russians acknowledged meeting "ferocious resistance" but the Defence Minister, Pavel Grachev, claimed late last night that "the entire city centre and several districts of the city and its outskirts are under complete control of Russian forces".

Heavy fighting had enveloped the railway station, several blocks away from the palace, in the afternoon. A band of about 100 Chechens scurried past abandoned brick homes and locked steel gates, trying to reach the station. They were armed mostly with Kalashnikovs, hunting rifles and a few grenades and were spirited, but largely undisciplined.

An enormous plume of black smoke rose from the burning Lenin oil refinery on the edge of Grozny and soot from the fire stained the snow up to 80 miles (130 km) away. The boom of tanks and heavy guns every few seconds in the centre was deafening and the fighting was spreading throughout Grozny.

Huge oil tankers, hit by Russian bombs and shells, blazed for several kilometres across a ridge west of the city. Black smoke covered most of the sky, blotted out the afternoon sun and filled the air with an oily stench. Russian tanks began shelling the Lenin Refinery, which produced aviation fuel, kerosene, and other oil products early yesterday.

From a small street market just beyond the range of sniper fire a Reuter correspondent, Oleg Shchedrov, saw truckloads of Chechen fighters, wearing green headbands to symbolise an Islamic holy war, arriving to defend the city, home to 400,000 people before the fighting started. "These Russian soldiers and their officers were naive," said Magomet, 25, two hand grenades tucked into his belt and a Kalashnikov slung across his shoulder. "They are powerful by day, but they know nothing about Grozny and they can by picked off by night. I think we will finish with them by night."

The three-week war and attempt to storm Grozny has turned the city into a ghost town. Few central streets have escaped damage from two weeks of air raids. By yesterday, the atmosphere of fear fed rumours of a fifth column of spies and accusations that Russian residents were helping the enemy.

Late last night shell bursts could be heard in the city centre every two or three seconds and Grozny was being bombed again.

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