Fifteen soldiers were killed and 40 wounded in a spurt of heavy fighting across Chechnya over the last 24 hours, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen administration said Saturday. Chechen fighters, firing automatic weapons and launching grenades, stormed a military commandant's office in Samashki, west of Grozny, killing three soldiers and wounding 12 before slipping away, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The military responded by sending units into the Samashki forest and the nearby village to try to flush out the attackers, using the much-criticized sweep operations that human rights groups say too often also ensnare and brutalize civilians. In separate deadly attacks over the last 24 hours, fighters ambushed a group of paratroopers near Dyshne-Vedeno in Chechnya's rugged south and attacked a military convoy outside Gudermes. A total of five soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in the attacks. Other attacks on federal positions killed three soldiers and wounded 11, the official said. Two sappers also were killed in Grozny. Also in Grozny, sappers on Saturday successfully defused a remote-controlled explosive device -- packed with 10 kilograms of TNT and metal fragments -- hidden at an intersection, an official in Chechnya's Emergency Situations Ministry said. Chechnya's pro-Moscow chief, Akhmad Kadyrov, who is on a temporary leave of absence to run for the Chechen presidency, told Interfax on Saturday that fighters were trying to aggravate the situation ahead of the Oct. 5 election. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Russian soldier sits on top of the APC patrolling the streets of Chechen capital Grozny.(AFP/File/Anatoly Maltsev)