MOSCOW, August 13 (RIA Novosti) – A local Russian Interior Ministry soldier was killed and two more were wounded by twin bomb blasts during a search for Islamist militants in the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, police said Tuesday.
The blasts took place Monday afternoon near the western village of Achkhoi-Martan, where the Chechen Interior Ministry’s Akhmad Kadyrov unit was on a reconnaissance mission in a forest area, the Interior Ministry's press service said in a statement.
The blasts, 25 minutes apart, killed a sniper and caused two more servicemen to suffer “concussion and shrapnel wounds,” police said. One of them is in a serious condition, police added.
The second bomb was triggered as reinforcements arrived in the area following the detonation of the first bomb, according to preliminary information from the police.
Russia fought two wars against Chechen separatists in the 1990s, but insurgent activity there has largely died down since Kremlin-backed strongman Ramzan Kadyrov has led the republic, crushing resistance at the head of his own militia group.
Radical Islamists have been more active in the other republics of the Northern Caucasus in recent years, particularly Dagestan and Ingushetia, where almost daily attacks on police and federal forces have claimed hundreds of lives.
