Eurasia Press & News
MOSCOW (Reuters) – At least two Russian soldiers have been killed in bombings in Chechnya, including a suicide attack on a government camp, Russian news agencies reported on Saturday.
One soldier was killed and 11 were wounded when two suicide bombers rammed a jeep packed with explosives through the fence of the Interior Ministry camp in Vedeno, south of the region’s capital Grozny, a battalion spokesman was quoted as saying by RIA news agency.
A Vedeno resident who saw the aftermath of the blast said both attackers were killed in the blast. The woman, who saw the severed head of one of them, said he appeared to be in his teens.
The camp, where Interior Ministry troops had been quartered in tents, burned to the ground, she said.
Another soldier died in a radio-controlled bomb attack in the village of Serzhen-Yurt, which lies between Vedeno and the Chechen capital, Grozny, Russian agencies reported.
It was the second round of fatal attacks on Russian troops in the past week in Chechnya, a North Caucasus territory where Russia has fought two wars against separatist rebels since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
On Sunday, two senior Russian officers were killed in an ambush on their convoy.
Russian security officials said this week that Islamist militants in the North Caucasus region were planning a new wave of attacks.
Analysts say Moscow’s decision to recognize rebel Georgian regions as independent states risks encourage separatist sentiments in Chechnya and elsewhere in the Russian North Caucasus.
