RUSSIAN forces using artillery and helicopter gunships have fought their first pitched battle this year with Chechen rebels for control of the region's third largest town, Argun, as fighting flares across the province.

Two rebel units on Monday infiltrated Argun, which sits at the mouth of a strategically important gorge, attacking Russian troops and ambushing a relief convoy, destroying armoured vehicles. In the battle that followed, Russia used heavy artillery and rocket-firing helicopters in a fierce bombardment of the south eastern suburbs. Assault troops moved into the town under a dense cloud of smoke and last night said they had regained control.

The battle comes amid an escalating rebel offensive that began last weekend and has seen the province wracked by confused fighting, with at least 15 separate attacks mounted on Russian positions.

The offensive forced Moscow at the weekend to cancel plans to cut three-quarters of the 80,000-strong army in the province. And after mines destroyed army vehicles in the Chechen capital, Grozny, Russia has also reversed plans to reopen the city to the provincial government - the cornerstone of its much-vaunted "normalisation" process.

Rebel forces have attacked at a key time. A European Union delegation is visiting the province, and is due to report on the human rights situation at an EU-Russian summit in Moscow on 17 May. The delegation's leader, the Swedish ambassador, Sven Hidman, said he had been hearing allegations of human rights abuses during his tour.

The new fighting also underlines the failure of the FSB, the renamed KGB, to make any impact on the province. In January, the FSB was given command of the Chechen operation after the army proved unable to smash the rebels. But secret servicemen have proved no better than the generals in either defeating the rebels in the field or seizing their commanders.

Moscow is using badly trained troops, thinly spread, to tackle one of the world's best organised and most ruthless guerrilla organisations, well funded from abroad. The melting of winter snows allows its units to live happily in the open, and spring foliage means they are hard to track with Russian air power.

The Argun battle also brought confusing statements from the various Russian services involved in the battle, hinting at continuing problems in co-ordination.

Russia's regional army commander, General Gennady Troshev, said the Argun battle had been planned as a sweep to evict guerrilla units from the town. "It was all previously planned, we had losses," he said. But the interior ministry said the troops had run into an ambush, and needed to be reinforced, with at least four soldiers dead. Among 14 rebel dead, the Russians say they found two Wahhabis - Islamic fundamentalist volunteers from the Middle East.

A spokesman for the Chechen rebels, Movladi Udugov, told news agencies that the rebels had carried out their ambushes, then pulled out most of their men when the Russians sent in reinforcements.

The battle comes with Moscow desperate to end the war, partly to salvage the credibility of their army, viewed as impotent and dogged by allegations of torture and corruption among units in the province.

Russia is also facing a belated piling-up of criticism by human-rights agencies about its human rights record. Last month the Council of Europe gave Moscow a month to clean up its act, or face suspension from membership - the first time any nation would have been suspended from the organisation.

Also last month the United Nations Human Rights Commission passed a resolution, sponsored by the European Union, condemning Russia as using "disproportionate" force.

And this month's Moscow summit may see fresh criticism from the EU human rights groups have meanwhile accused Moscow of dragging its feet over the most contentious issue of all - the discovery in March of the bodies of 42 executed Chechen civilians dumped outside the Russian military headquarters at Khankala.

What is conspicuously missing from all this is any talk of finding a peace settlement. The Chechen rebels say they will settle for nothing less than independence. Russia says talks can be held only if this idea is discarded. Meanwhile, the suffering goes on for tens of thousands of refugees.

Chris Stephen In Moscow
The Scotsman