The Russians appear to be making some slow progress in their offensive in Dagestan.

But their failure thus far to defeat the guerrillas suggests their military is still in a miserable state, three years after it lost the war in Chechnya - and is repeating some very old mistakes.

The Russian military is reported to have captured the strategically important Kharami pass that links Dagestan and Chechnya.

But despite repeated assertions by the military leadership that they would defeat the rebels quickly, the evidence is that they have been fighting a difficult battle.

Reinforcements

Thursday's edition of Izvestia newspaper reported that the military had used up all the reservists from the North Caucasus Military District, and decided to call on elite paratroopers from Ulyanovsk and Pskov to use against the mountain stronghold of Tando.

That suggests aerial bombardment has not worked there.

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Elite troops have been called in as reinforcements

Other badly-needed paratroopers are currently serving in Kosovo.

The authorities admit so far to only four casualties amongst the paratroopers, but that figure is almost certain to rise.

The fact that Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev flew to Dagestan on Wednesday suggested the operation was in need of command from the very top.

Historical battlefield

The confident statements of the generals are reminiscent not only of their misplaced optimism in the Chechen war - who can forget former Russian Defence Minister Pavel Grachev's claim that he could take Grozny "in two hours"? - but of campaigns much further back in history.

In the 19th century these mountains of Dagestan were the setting for some of the fiercest fighting of the Caucasian Wars between Islamic fighters and the tsar's armies.

Russian soldiers wounded in the fighting are taken to hospital

The Botlikh and Tsumada regions, where these latest clashes are taking place, are only a few valleys away from Gimry and Akhulgo, where the Dagestani warrior mullah Imam Shamil fought two of his most famous battles in the 1830s.

Then, as now, it was a confrontation between two very different adversaries.

The Russians had thousands of conscripts at their disposal and heavy weapons, but were slow and clumsy in the mountains.

The fewer, but much more nimble mountain fighters, knew the woods and the caves of the region and used surprise ambushes and sudden raids to inflict losses on the enemy.

Rebel edge

Several factors play to the fighters' advantage. Most of them are experienced mountain warriors, veterans of the Chechen war, and others - such as the Arab commander Khattab - of Afghanistan as well.

Elite troops have been called in as reinforcements

They have no shortage of arms, supplied by foreign backers or bought from corrupt Russian soldiers. In summer they can move freely and undetected amongst the forests that cover the mountains on the Chechen-Dagestani border.

Most importantly perhaps, they have the capacity to escape, when facing defeat. This is what Imam Shamil did at Gimry and Akhulgo and what happened several times during the Chechen war, such as at the siege of Pervomaiskoye when the Chechen fighters broke through a tight cordon of Russian troops.

So this time, if Russian artillery and bombers prevail, Shamil Basayev and his comrades will probably leave. They can then be expected to regroup and launch an attack somewhere else.

Already there are unconfirmed reports that Basayev is planning something in the Prigorodny region, between Ingushetia and North Ossetia and west of Chechnya.

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