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Chechnian Suicide Squad Strikes Back |
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June 13, 2000
NAZRAN, Russia, JUNE 12 (AP) - Two Russian policemen were killed and one was wounded when a suicide bomber set off an explosive in the trunk of his car when he was stopped at a roadblock, the military command said Monday.
According to the press service of the North Caucasus command, the car was stopped for an identification and document check Sunday night at a roadblock in the capital Grozny.
The driver refused to let the police search his car, and when they attempted to force open the trunk, the driver set off the explosive by remote control. Two policemen and the driver were killed in the blast and one police officer was wounded, the press service said.
Russian forces clashed at dawn Monday with a gang of rebels attempting to infiltrate the town of Argun, just east of Grozny, the regional Interior Ministry said. "A tough cleanup operation is underway," in the area where the rebels are believed to be hiding, the ministry's press service said.
In Grozny, police sappers on Sunday defused an anti-tank mine with a 70-meter (yard) wire connected to a remote detonator that was found in a marketplace, the military press spokesman said.
The Russian offensive against Chechnya, which began in late September, has stalled for months in the rugged southern mountains.
The rebels have kept up ambushes and bombings in the northern lowlands that have inflicted a steady stream of losses on Russian forces and sapped troop morale.
The military spokesman said Russian troops have been put on high alert against rebel offensives Monday, Russia's Independence Day.
Col. Gen. Gennady Troshev told the Interfax news agency, "for us, for the army, there are no holidays at war."
The Russians were driven out of Chechnya in a 1994-96 war. They re-entered in September after Islamic militants based there seized several villages in the neighboring Russian region of Dagestan, and after about 300 people died in apartment bombings the government blames on Chechens. |