Russian Military Chopper Shot Down

Chechen rebels shot down a Russian military helicopter Sunday, killing nine soldiers, shortly after the defense minister announced he was suspending plans to cutback Moscow's force in the troubled province.

In the second such attack in less than a week, the Mi-8 helicopter, carrying three military crew and six troops, was hit as it lifted off from Russia's military headquarters in the southern republic. The Interfax news agency reported that all nine soldiers onboard were killed.

"I have made a decision to suspend the plans on cutting down troops in Chechnya," Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told journalists in Khabarovsk in the Russian Far East.

Russian officials have repeatedly said that they have the situation under control in Chechnya. President Vladimir Putin rose to power with a promise to get tough on the Muslim separatists, but while Russia maintains a commanding force in the small southern republic, rebels continue to inflict daily casualties.

Last month's seizure of hundreds of hostages in a Moscow theater by armed Chechen rebels brought the war home to the Russian capital.

"In recent days, we have received more and more information that on the territory of Chechnya, and not only there, rebels are preparing to commit new terrorist acts," Ivanov said in remarks shown on Russian television.

"In several villages, they are hiring suicide terrorists," he added.

Ivanov did not provide details on how many troops are currently in Chechnya — information considered a military secret by Russian authorities. But he said that Russian forces in Chechnya are involved in "a large-scale, tough but targeted special operation" and are capable of acting throughout the republic.

Only four months ago, in July, Ivanov indicated that the war in Chechnya may be drawing to a close. During a visit to Norway, he said that he expected "excess" troops to be withdrawn from Chechnya by the end of the year.

A month later, the rebels claimed their biggest single-day victory with the downing of a packed Russian military helicopter, killing at least 119 people.

Rebels are shooting down Russian helicopters with increasing frequency, often using shoulder-fired rocket launchers that Russian officials did not think were part of their arsenal a year ago. On Tuesday, rebels shot down another Mi-8, killing all three crew members and one passenger aboard.

In Sunday's attack, rebels downed the Mi-8 helicopter as it took off from the Khankala airfield near the Chechen capital Grozny, said Alexander Lemeshev, an official with Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry.

Lemeshev said that he did not have any information about the fate of the people on board, but Lt. Boris Podoprigora, deputy commander of Russian forces, was quoted as telling Interfax that all nine were killed.

Podoprigora said that the helicopter was downed by rebel fire from a mobile rocket launcher positioned in a dilapidated five-story building on the outskirts of Grozny, Interfax reported.

Federal troops cordoned off the neighborhood and were searching for the rebels, Podoprigora said. He told Interfax that two rebels had already been killed.

Russian forces stepped up patrols in Chechnya after the Oct. 23 seizure of the Moscow theater. The hostage-taking ended after 58 hours and resulted in the deaths of at least 41 militants and 119 of the people trapped inside the building.

During the rebel raid in Moscow, the Russian military moved armored personnel carriers within view of the giant tent camps that house thousands of Chechen families in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia. Last week, the U.N. refugee agency expressed concern about the continuing presence of checkpoints and military vehicles outside the camps, saying they could hamper the protection of refugees.

An official in the pro-Moscow Chechen administration said Sunday that at least 100 people had been detained since Saturday on suspicion of aiding the rebels in a number of sweep operations in Grozny and the towns of Gudermes, Achkhoi-Martan and Urus-Martan.

Meanwhile, four police officers and four Russian soldiers were killed in clashes with rebels and a mine explosion over the past 24 hours, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya in 1996 after separatist rebels fought them to a standstill in a 20-month war, but swept in again in 1999, after rebels raided neighboring Dagestan and after some 300 people died in apartment-building bombings blamed on the rebels.