MOSCOW (Islamweb & Agencies) - Russia claimed Wednesday its invading forces had cleared a remote mountain gorge of Chechen Resistance men after a major battle.
The fighting followed a weekend battle that ended in the death of a top nationalist Resistance chief, which prompted media speculation that Moscow was switching tactics after many months of stalemate in the Caucus region.
There were no independent reports from the scene of the latest clashes, in the mountains near the border with Georgia, but Russian officials claimed the fighting as a success.
``They are mopping up the territory. There is no more active fighting,'' said an aide to the Kremlin's Chechnya spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky.
He said that about half of the 40 Resistance men believed to have been encircled had been killed. Russia tended to exaggerate Chechen losses in the past.
Russian officials claimed Tuesday that only one Russian occupation soldier had died.
Yastrzhembsky, who is in Paris on an official visit, said in remarks broadcast on ORT television that according to his information prominent Jordanian-born volunteer commander Khattab was not among those involved in the battle.
Yastrzhembsky's office claimed the fighters were mostly foreigners -- Arabs or Afghans -- fighting for the Chechen cause, some armed with U.S.-made rifles rather than the Russian ones used by most Chechen fighters.
The mountain battle follows the killing of Arbi Barayev, a Chechen nationalist Resistance commander Moscow long accused of masterminding a brutal campaign of kidnappings for ransom.  
KIDNAPPED JOURNALIST FREED 
A Russian journalist who had been held captive by the fighters in Chechnya for two years was meanwhile released Wednesday, RTR state television reported.
Viktor Petrov, who was seized in Chechnya in 1999, told ORT television he had escaped from his captors. RTR claimed that he had been freed by a special operation of the FSB domestic security service.
Russian invading forces announced Sunday that they had been battling Barayev's forces for days in a special search and destroy mission in his home village. On Monday, they said they had identified Barayev's body among the dead.
Western analysts say Killing Barayev was a major coup for the Russian troops, who had failed to kill or capture any of the top Resistance leaders, despite occupying virtually all of once Resistance-held Chechen territory since March of last year.
President Vladimir Putin transferred control of the Chechnya operation from the army to the FSB security police earlier this year, and the FSB said it planned to hunt Resistance chiefs down in their homes while withdrawing tens of thousands of troops.
But the troop withdrawal was later put on ice and until last week no top Resistance leader had been hunted down.
Izvestia newspaper said Tuesday the new tactic could be aimed at eliminating radical Resistance leaders and opening talks with elected Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, who led the Chechen delegation at talks that ended an earlier 1994-96 war.
But Yastrzhembsky denied that Russia had any plans to talk to Maskhadov.
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PHOTO CAPTION

Russia hailed the death June 25, 2001 of Chechen nationalist Resistance leader, Arbi Barayev, after troops recovered the body of the valient field commander who has been held responsible for several stunning military feats. Russian television said several thousand troops had encircled Barayev and his followers in a village outside Grozny. It said many of them, including the Barayev, were killed in six days of grinding battles which ended June 24. Barayev is shown at a position near Sernovodsk in this October 16, 1999 file picture. (Reuters)
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