Russian helicopter was carrying 117 men

The Interfax news agencyhas has said 112 servicemen and five crew members were on board the Russian helicopter that crash-landed in Chchnya.

The military headquarters in Chechnya said the wreckage was still on fire more than an hour after the crash, and that survivors were being evacuated.

The crash came amid a spate of rebel actions against federal forces, including attacks late last week in southwestern Chechnya that killed nine servicemen and five civilians.

Some analysts surmised that rebels had intensified their actions to underline to the Russian government that it should enter peace negotiations.

The government maintains that the war in Chechnya, launched in fall 1999, is all but over, with just isolated groups of rebels holding out.

In September 2001, two generals and 11 other Russian servicemen died when their helicopter was shot down by a shoulder-fired missile shortly after takeoff from Grozny.

Another helicopter, an Mi-8 carrying two top Interior Ministry officials and 12 other people, crashed in Chechnya in January.

The Kremlin said that crash was due to an accident, but an official with the Moscow-appointed civilian administration for Chechnya said that investigators had found some fragments of the helicopter that suggested it, too, was hit by a shoulder-fired missile.