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13 Are Killed As Bomb Explodes Near Chechen Police Vehicle

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 12:00 CDT

At least 13 people were killed and more than 20 wounded after a terrorist bomb exploded near a police vehicle in northern Chechnya on Tuesday, according to Chechen officials. "The bloody events perpetrated by terrorists have caused extreme indignation on the part of the entire Chechen people," said the pro-Moscow president of Chechnya, Alu Alkhanov, in a statement reported by Russian news agencies after the attack in Znamenskoye, a town in the Nadterechny district, which borders the Stavropol region of Russia.

The NTV television channel in Russia reported that the blast occurred after a brigade of policeman arrived to investigate a police car that had been found with a body in it. Other news agencies reported that the first vehicle had come under fire before the explosion. Most of the dead were policemen, but civilians also died, including a boy who had been riding past on his bicycle, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia mentioned the attack in asking his government to allocate money to strengthen security along Russia's borders.

"The last tragic events in the Nadterechny district of Chechnya show that everything that is planned there must be done and done as quickly as possible," he said in televised remarks at a meeting with government ministers.

Coverage of the blast on Russia's main television channels, which are strongly loyal to the Kremlin, was muted, but other reports say the Northern Caucasus and Chechnya have grown increasingly unstable in recent months. Russian newspapers, which are much more critical, routinely describe Dagestan, which borders Chechnya, as being on the verge of war. Ten Russian commandos were killed in a bombing there earlier this month and attacks against policemen and public figures there have become almost a daily occurrence in recent months.

Pro-Moscow forces in Chechnya are regularly targeted by guerrillas fighting against the Russian presence in the region, but they are also accused of abusing Chechen civilians in a cycle of violence that has increasingly turned the simmering conflict into a civil war.

Source: International Herald Tribune

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