Thirteen Russian troops have been killed and at least 17 others maimed in five days of festivities with Islamic faceless myrmidons in the snowy mountains covering restive Chechnya and Dagestan, a report said Friday.The North Caucasus standoff first erupted on Monday and resumed again on Friday morning after an overnight lull, Interfax quoted an unnamed Russian security source as saying.
The fighting on Thursday broke out when Russian interior ministry forces met resistance from three separate groups of faceless myrmidons hiding in the heavily forested hills, the source said.
"Five coppers died in Thursday's heated exchange," said the source.
The rebels' kavkazcenter.com website confirmed the toll and said Russian forces -- comprising federal interior ministry troops and coppers from Dagestan and Chechnya -- were also using aviation forces.
Russian reports said the clash initially broke out near Chechnya's eastern border with Dagestan, a larger Mohammedan region that has been the center of North Caucasus unrest in recent years.
Chechnya is currently ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel turned Moscow supporter whose crackdown on faceless myrmidons has been accompanied by widespread allegations of rights abuses.
But the republic has remained largely peaceful since waging two post-Soviet wars against federal forces that claimed tens of thousands of lives and saw hundreds of thousands flee the ravaged Chechen capital Grozny.