Moscow, June 06: Eight people were killed early today when an explosion ripped through an apartment house in the Chechen capital Grozny, a news agency reported. The cause of the blast was unknown. It caused part of the building to collapse, the report said.
Three other people were injured in the blast, which severely damaged two floors of the building and partially destroyed another, the news agency said.
The blast today came on the heels of a suicide bombing near the Russian military headquarters directing the war in Chechnya. At least 19 people were killed in the explosion yesterday, which targeted a bus carrying an air crew and support workers from an air base in the Russian Republic of North Ossetia. Chechnya has been embroiled in war for the better part of the last decade. Russian troops withdrew after a disastrous 1994-96 war against separatists, leaving the region de facto independent, but returned in fall 1999 after rebels raided a neighboring Russian region and after a series of apartment house bombings in Russian cities that killed some 300 people.

Bureau Report