Ian Traynor, The Guardian
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Russia's loyalist mayor of Grozny ordered the instant shooting of any ethnic Chechens at the weekend suspected of murdering Russian civilians in the lawless Chechen capital.

Bislan Gantamirov, a Chechen and a convicted embezzler, was appointed mayor of Grozny by the Kremlin. He announced that suspected Chechen murderers should be killed 'without trial or investigation" after the mutilated corpses of three Russians civilians were found in the city at the weekend. The three, all members of one family, had been shot dead and then disfigured, officials said.

Mr Gantamirov's call, which flies in the face of President Vladimir Putin's repeated promises to restore 'normal' civilian administration and the rule of law in the breakaway republic, came as the top Russian officials running the 19-month war pledged a new hard line in Chechnya, while implicitly acknowledging that the war was going badly.

Sergei Ivanov, the new Russian defense minister, announced a halt to Russian force withdrawals from Chechnya after only 5,000 of an estimated 80,000 troops had been taken out. This was despite Mr Putin's promises earlier this year to pull out more than half of the total number.

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"'We have completed the stage of reducing the troops and have accordingly withdrawn a little more than 5,000 servicemen, around 40 tanks and several hundred armored personnel carriers," Mr Ivanov said. 'As of today, there are no plans to reduce the number of troops further," he said. For the umpteenth time, he promised better pay and conditions for the troops in Chechnya, but admitted cash problems.

A further sign of Russian desperation came when Mr Gryzlov said that the government was about to rush through a package of legislation on political extremism, terrorism, and a state of emergency through the Russian parliament. 'It is essential that the government . . . work out a strategic set of laws, which must be passed quickly," he said.

The Chechen women of Grozny, meanwhile, disrupted Russian patrols in the battered city by erecting impromptu roadblocks in protest at the killing of a local teacher, apparently by Russian soldiers.

The timing of Mr Gantamirov's controversial statement on summary executions suggested he had come in for severe criticism from the Kremlin officials for failing to make Grozny safe for Russian civilians, the Russian administrators, and the Russian troops.

'The mayor has given orders that these people should be shot on the spot," Mr Gantamirov's spokesman said. 'He will personally commend those who fulfil that order.'