GROZNY, Russia -- Clear skies allowed the Russian air force to renew bombing over Chechnya on Saturday, and the military claimed to have driven Islamic rebels into the mountains.

The army is focusing on the Chechen capital, Grozny, which it says it has largely surrounded, and the rebel stronghold of Bamut in the west of the breakaway Caucasus Mountains republic.The resumed airstrikes came amid intense international criticism of Russia's two-month military campaign. At a summit in Turkey last week, a defiant President Boris Yeltsin angrily rejected calls for negotiations to end the war.

After fog grounded flights Friday, Russian Su-24 attack planes and Mi-24 helicopters flew 70 missions Saturday, the military command said. In addition to Bamut, they concentrated on the cities of Urus-Martan, southwest of Grozny, and Argun, east of the capital, the Interfax news agency reported.

The army has said it hoped to seize Bamut this weekend, though Russian planes have been pounding the rebel base for weeks and it was unclear how much closer they were to a takeover Saturday.

Chechen Deputy Prime Minister Kazbek Makhashev told Interfax that Urus-Martan was being pummeled Saturday without letup. He said the Russian troops wanted to force residents to flee, then "announce its capture without a single shot."

Meanwhile, Russian ground forces on Saturday seized towns around Chechnya's second-largest city, Gudermes, which the Russians occupied last week. Military officials said they were beginning house-to-house searches of the towns and that most of the rebels in the area have fled into nearby mountains, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

On the border with the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia, the tide of refugees was flowing in two directions Saturday.

Several thousand Chechens fleeing the fighting arrived in Ingushetia over the past 24 hours, while several thousand other refugees returned to Chechnya after Russian forces routed militants from their villages.

Refugees returning to the town of Sernovodsk complained Friday that Russian troops who "liberated" their town from rebels then looted the property of residents who had fled.

More than 217,000 refugees have fled to Ingushetia since the Russian campaign began.

In Moscow, the U.N. commissioner for refugees, Sadako Ogata, met with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to discuss the plight of the refugees in Ingushetia. Ogata's agency wants to send staff and aid to the region, especially as winter closes in, but is waiting for the Russian government to provide security guarantees.

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Deputy Interior Minister Ivan Golubev said Saturday that more than 500 hostages remain in captivity in Chechnya, and were being used as forced labor in building fortifications for Chechen guerrillas, according to ITAR-Tass.

Chechnya has effectively been beyond Moscow's control since Russian forces withdrew at the end of a 1994-96 war.

Moscow now says it is aiming to clear the region of Islamic militants blamed for terrorist acts around Russia, and insists it is targeting only rebel fighters, despite claims from human rights groups and Chechens that the civilian toll has been high.

Yeltsin met in the Kremlin on Saturday with Ivanov and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev to discuss the situation in the northern Caucasus.

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