Grozny: Suicide bombers on bicycles detonated
explosives in Chechnya today, killing at least four police
officers and a civilian in coordinated attacks in the capital,
officials said.
The suicide bombers approached police officers in two
central locations in Grozny and blew themselves up, killing
two officers in each attack, said Chechnya's Interior Minister
Ruslan Alkhanov in televised remarks.
Russian emergency services spokesman Alexei Zemskov said
three other people were wounded. An Associated Press reporter
saw body parts scattered at the sites of both attacks, which
come at the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Today's violence followed Monday's suicide bombing of a
police station in neighboring Ingushetia that killed 25 people
and injured more than 160 in the deadliest attack in the
volatile North Caucasus region in years.
A Chechen rebel group calling itself the Riyadus Salikhin
Martyrs' Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack in
Nazran in a statement posted today on a Web site sympathetic
to Chechen rebels. The claim could not be independently
confirmed, but officials also said the attack had been mounted
by militants seeking to avenge recent security raids.
Russian news reports initially said there were several
other explosions in Grozny today, but officials said there
were only two.
Bureau Report
First Published: Saturday, August 22, 2009, 00:42