1 Chechen rebels shot down their first Russian jet fighter of the war Saturday, downing an Su-25 with anti-aircraft guns not far from Grozny, the embattled capital of Chechnya.
2 Russian television channels showed wreckage of the single-seat attack jet strewn over a field and said the body of the pilot, a major, had been taken to the town of Shali, 25 kilometers (16 miles) southeast of Grozny.
3 Russian jets have rained death and destruction on Chechnya for nearly two months with indiscriminate attacks, including one on Shali that killed scores of people and destroyed a market and a maternity hospital.
4 The news came as the Kremlin-backed Chechen opposition joined a worldwide chorus of condemnation against Russia and accused its purported ally of widespread brutality in the war on secessionist Chechnya.
5 The harsh statement was issued as residents of Samashky suffered the second attack in a row on a civilian funeral by Russian helicopter gunships.
6 Residents of the strategic town 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of Grozny said the helicopters raked a funeral with machine-gun fire Saturday, killing three mourners.
7 'Why are they attacking peaceful people?' said Luisa Marsagova, 30, who lives in a two-story brick building overlooking the site of the attack. 'Yeltsin is a pig.'
8 Thousands of civilians have been killed since President Boris Yeltsin sent Russian forces into Chechnya on Dec. 11. Many nations, and many Russians, have expressed outrage at the horrific pictures of carnage in Grozny and elsewhere. But the Chechen opposition had remained silent until now.
9 The condemnation by Moscow's supposed ally against Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev could complicate Russia's troubled efforts to subdue Chechnya and install a government sympathetic to the Kremlin.
10 The Chechen opposition assailed the shelling of residential areas, looting and the unprovoked killing of civilians.
11 'These practices are producing dozens of new volunteers, who until now have been loyal towards the federal authorities, to take up arms,' Ruslan Martagov, a spokesman for the opposition Provisional Council, said in Znamenskoye, an opposition stronghold in northern Chechnya.
12 Martagov also condemned 'barbarian and senselessly cruel bombings and shellings of residential districts of Grozny.'
13 The statement, carried by the ITAR-Tass news agency, justified the use of military force in Chechnya, saying Dudayev's policies put Russia 'on the brink of disintegration, and it had to take measures to protect its integrity.' But, it said, 'we must speak about the kind of measures taken to restore constitutional order in Chechnya.'
14 New Russian artillery attacks on the Grozny area were reported Saturday and heavy fighting continued around a bridge over the Sunzha River, the front line in the battle for the capital.
15 Southwest of Grozny, a deafening artillery bombardment could be heard near the village of Bamut and there were reports the Russians were also shelling rebel strongholds of Argun and Gudermes east of Grozny.
16 Southeast of Grozny, Chechen rebels tried to capture a road leading to neighboring Dagestan but Russian forces repulsed them, inflicting heavy losses, ITAR-Tass said.
17 There were also troubling signs the war could spread outside Chechnya. Officials in neighboring Ingushetia said a Russian convoy had opened fire on the Ingush village of Gazi-Yurt. No casualties were reported. A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman told the ITAR-Tass news agency that Russian troops had fired in self-defense.
18 In Samashky, Chechen witnesses said three helicopters opened fire Friday on a small crowd that had gathered for the funeral of a mother and daughter killed the previous day. Three men died in the attack.
19 Dozens of people have been killed in Samashky in a week of attacks, and many houses have smashed roofs, broken windows and bullet-scarred walls.
20 Truckloads of Chechen fighters arrived Saturday to assist the town militia, armed with Kalashnikovs and grenades and wearing black ski caps with green ribbons tied around them -- a sign of gazavat or holy war.
21 About half the town's population, which had grown to 20,000 in recent days with an influx of refugees, has fled the fighting. But many people walked the streets Saturday in apparent defiance of the daily shelling -- men chatting on street corners, children fetching water, women running errands.
22 'Nothing can break our spirit,' said a woman in a black fur coat who gave her name only as Zulai, 38.
23 'If the Russians drive us out of our homes, we will all go to the mountains. We will all fight if necessary -- women and children too,' she said. 'Without question, we will win.'

The news came as the Kremlin - backed Chechen opposition joined a worldwide chorus of condemnation against Russia and accused its purported ally of widespread brutality in the war on secessionist Chechnya .
purported ally
Who is the ally here?