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"Reuters"
June, 13th 2008
NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) - Several people were killed in one of the worst spates of violence for months in Russia's North Caucasus, officials said on Friday.
Russia is struggling to contain a mix of Islamist insurgents, separatist rebels and organized crime in the region.
It says a separatist rebellion in Chechnya, where it has fought two wars, has largely been quelled, and to showcase its return to normality, Chechnya's first film festival opened on Friday in the capital Grozny.
In the latest violence, a remote-controlled bomb in Dagestan killed one man, a firefight in the same region killed two rebels, police said, and a raid by gunmen in Chechnya killed at least three people.
There were conflicting reports about an explosion in Ingushetia that killed four people.
Emergency services said the blast destroyed a building in Nazran, the biggest city in the Ingushetia region. "We are looking at several versions. The main one is that it was a gas explosion," a local police official said.
But a source in Ingushetia's interior ministry said: "Most likely it was a deliberate blast. But it is up to the forensics laboratory to have the final word."
The North Caucasus experiences sporadic attacks but it is unusual for so many to take place over a 24-hour period. There was no evidence that the incidents had been coordinated.
Russian news agencies quoted officials as saying at least 25 armed rebels raided the village of Benoi-Vedeno in Chechnya late on Thursday, killing three locals and burning several houses.
An internet site with ties to the separatist movement, www.kavkazcenter.com, said the rebels had killed 11 armed men linked to Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's pro-Moscow president.
In Dagestan on Friday, a remote-controlled bomb packed with shrapnel killed a jogger in a park in the capital Makhachkala, police said. Russian television showed pictures of a pool of blood on a pavement.
Security forces said two armed insurgents were killed in Bayram Aul, a village in Dagestan, after a firefight.
Valery Zhernov, Dagestan's first deputy interior minister, said one of the dead rebels was a 17-year-old woman. "When he (the male insurgent) realized the hopelessness of the situation, he blew up himself and his assistant," Zhernov said.
The North Caucasus is home to a collection of impoverished and mainly Muslim mountain tribes which have periodically rebelled against Moscow's rule.
(Writing by Christian Lowe and Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Janet Lawrence) |
