ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT IN CHECHNYA FAILS.

Oleg Lobov, Russian security council secretary and special envoy of president Yeltsin for Chechnya, and other senior Russian officials and pro-Moscow Chechens escaped injury when a remote-control bomb damaged a car in their convoy as it was traveling near Grozny airport. (4) In a special statement September 19, Russia’s military command said that Chechen fighters continue attacking Russian forces in violation of the armistice. From September 1 through 18, Russian forces lost 26 killed and 153 were wounded. The statement charged that: Chechen forces are failing to hand over their weapons; are forming village self-defense units (which are permitted by the armistice agreement) without the supervision of the joint armistice commission or the OSCE mission; and are appointing "criminals" (e.g. participants in Shamil Basayev’s Budennovsk operation) as village heads or field commanders. The statement demanded that the Chechen forces immediately hand over 30,000 weapons and their combat hardware in accordance with the disarmament schedule, or federal troops will disarm Chechen units by force. Simultaneously with this statement, the Russian command issued an appeal to Grozny’s residents, pointing out that attacks on Russian positions in the city have increased considerably as rebels mine areas around Russian units, block checkpoints, attack individual servicemen and vehicles, and "push civilians into unlawful actions and into clashing with federal troops." The statement appealed to the population to show restraint and not follow "provocations" on the city streets.

Chechen chief of staff Aslan Maskhadov and presidential spokesman Movladi Udogov issued statements, which they also handed to the CSCE mission’s chief Sandor Meszaros, denying the charges.

An enlarged session of the Chechen parliament, attended by village heads and field commanders and held in Roshni-Chu village, resolved to extend Dzhokhar Dudayev’s term of office as president and postpone the presidential elections, scheduled for October 27, until conditions for democratic elections have been established. The withdrawal of Russian troops was cited as a prerequisite for elections, a demand which has been heard recently from some Russian officials and pro-Moscow Chechens. (5)

Yeltsin Signs Decree on Russian Bank Union.