Twelve people have been killed in a car-bomb blast in southeast Chechnya, Interfax News Agency reported on Wednesday quoting military sources.
Four of the dead were Russian soldiers, two pro-Russian local employees and the remaining six civilians, it said. The car-bomb exploded late last night near a marketplace in the village of Oktyabrskoye as a motorized Russian unit was passing, the regional military command was quoted as saying by Interfax. Two policemen and four villagers were wounded. A suspected member of an armed rebel group has been arrested, officials said. It has been the deadliest attack in Chechnya since December when a car-bomb killed 22 civilians in the southwestern town of Alkhan-Yurt.
Chechen rebels have recently stepped up their offensive against federal forces in the mountainous southeast of the republic, and also in the north, supposedly under full Russian control, taking an almost daily toll.
Bureau Report