President Boris Yeltsin has empowered national security chief Alexander Kokoshin and interior minister Sergei Stepashin, assisted by the military top brass, to ensure that no new breakaway republic like Chechnya appears on the map of the Russian federation, Kremlin sources said.

The Kremlin was also very worried over the continued presence of "wahabbis" owing allegiance to Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan-trained merceneries in the internecine war in the north Caucasian region and the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kirghizia.

In a coup attempt on May 20, more than 500 armed Chechens and Daghestanis, had stormed the Daghestan government headquarters at Makhachkala and hoisted a green "Islamic flag". Some 5000 pro-secessionists had at the same time occupied the centralsquare of the capital and renamed it after Lenin.

The sessionists demanded the resignation of the Republican Cabinet and its Prime Minister Magomedali Magomedov and agreed to withdraw after 24 hours of negotiation.

Though peace was temporarily restored, the coup attempt exposed the weakness of the local regime and indicated that Russia was losing grip over the north Caucasian region at a "catastrophic speed," Rio-Novosti news agency said.

The daily Izvestia said the sudden presence of Pak-trained guerillas in Kirghizia had unnerved the leadership in neighbouring Uzbekistan to such an extent that its President Islam Karimov rushed here two weeks ago to sign a military alliance treaty.

Russian security forces were already deployed in Tajikistan to repulse forays by the Afghan Taliban militia.