Chechnya attack kills 15

Around 15 people were killed and more than 20 injured yesterday when an armoured police carrier was blown up by rebels in Russia's Chechnya.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted local Prime Minister Sergei Abramov as saying 11 policemen and three civilians had died in the blast which left the police vehicle a twisted wreck.

A member of the FSB state security service also died in the attack in the village of Znamenskoye, about 60 km northwest of the regional capital, Grozny, he said.

Moscow has been trying for years to crush a separatist insurgency in mainly Muslim Chechnya. It has most of the region under nominal control, but police and troops still die daily, mainly in Grozny or the remote mountain villages.

President Vladimir Putin blames the war on international terrorists seeking to destabilise Russia, and responded to the blast by demanding quicker moves to close weak spots on the border with the ex-Soviet states of the South Caucasus.

Znamenskoye, like most of Chechnya's low-lying north, has been largely untouched by the war that has raged in the region for a decade, although a suicide bombing killed 59 people in the village in 2003.

"Today a terrorist act was committed... and as a result people have been killed, people have been injured and people have been seriously injured," said pro-Moscow President Alu Alkhanov in a televised statement.

Pro-Moscow officials were quoted by local agencies as blaming the attack on forces loyal to warlord Shamil Basayev, whom Moscow links to international terrorist groups and is called Russia's most wanted man.