By Dmitry Zaks
Agence France-Presse (AFP)

MOSCOW, June 4 (AFP) - Russia's military unexpectedly announced Monday it was pouring more troops into Chechnya only weeks after President Vladimir Putin announced the start of a triumphant withdrawal from the rebel republic.

Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said an additional 1,500 soldiers would be dispatched to the ruined rebel capital Grozny in the coming days.

"This formation will remain in Chechnya for a long time," Gryzlov said.

The shelled-out city, devastated by guerrilla attacks and a landmine war of attrition that has characterised the 20-month conflict, has recently seen an unusual -- even by Chechnya standards -- return of gun battles to the streets.

The Russian military late last week was forced to seal off all streets leading into Grozny, declaring that it would conduct so-called mopping up operations in response to rebel attacks on federal positions.

Official reports say that only a few soldiers have been killed in Grozny in the past days. These reports are nearly impossible to confirm independently, although military sources have told AFP that the fighting which has recently gripped Grozny is in fact the worst seen so far this year.

However Gryzlov's announcement is particularly startling as it comes just weeks after Putin declared the military operation in Chechnya as a complete success, handing command of the operation over to the internal security service -- in the name of fighting crime, and not a war.

Gryzlov is a close Putin ally, appointed to the interior ministry post only this spring, and it is unlikely that he would make such an announcement without coordinating it with the president first. Putin himself refrained from making comments on Gryzlov's announcement.

But earlier Monday, Moscow's political establishment was already scrambling to react to a top Russian commander's suggestion that Chechen rebels should be hanged in public after their arrest. Russia's northern Caucasus commander, Gennady Troshev, called for "the most painful death penalty" to be applied to Chechen separatist fighters in an interview published Monday in the daily Izvestiya.

Kremlin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky criticized the general, who said he would "bring everyone out onto a public square and string up the bandits for all to see."

"Public and summary executions are out of the question," Yastrzhembsky said, stressing the Russian operations in the breakaway republic "cannot be conducted in conditions of arbitrariness and violation of Russian laws."

Troshev last week offered a million-dollar reward for the capture of rebel Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov and the two main Chechen warlords, Shamil Basayev and Khattab.

The death penalty is still in force in Russia, though a moratorium has been applied since 1996 following Russia's admission to the Council of Europe. Last month Justice Minister Yury Chaika called for the moratorium to be suspended in the case of terrorist actions.

Copyright © 2001 Agence France-Presse