MOSCOW, Sept 10: Muslim rebels In Tajikistan attacked and destroyed six Russian army artillery munitions depots near Dushanbe, triggering huge explosions and fires that con tlnued to burn today, Interfax news agency said, reports AFf.

The attack, the most serious assault by rebels near the capital tn nearly a year, coincided with a visit to Dushanbe by Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev who has been urging the government to negotiate with the opposition.

The report, quoting a spokesman for the Russian State Committee for Emergency Situations, said the attack Thursday caused no casualties and posed no danger to local residents.

Firefighters were continuing work to extinguish several small blazes still burning at the site of the depots about 24 kilometres

(10 miles) southwest of the Tajikistan capital. Interfax said.

Explosions of the munitions, reserves of the Russian army's 21st motorised division based In Tajikistan, continued for hours after the attack but had ended by late Thursday, ft. added. '

Two other munitions dumps were also attacked but remained Intact

Kozyrev, who met in Dushanbe Thursday with the Speaker of the Tajik parliament Bartlur Rakhimov, said afterwards that" everything has to be one' to organize talks between the government and leaders of the Muslim rebels.

Tensions between Russia and Tajikistan on one side and Afghanistan, where many Tajik rebels are baaed, rose sharply this summer following a rebel attack on a Russian border guard post that killed 25 sol-