A drunken driver collided with a motorcade carrying Chechen President Alu Alkhanov as he returned to Chechnya, killing an escorting security officer and critically injuring four others, law enforcement officials said today.

A powerful car-bomb blast apparently set off by a suicide attacker killed a high-level police official, two of his bodyguards and four civilians in southern Russia’s Ingushetia region today.

Ingushetia’s prime minister has reportedly been injured in an assassination attempt after two powerful explosions hit the city of Nazran in southern Russia.

Militants who carried out last September’s bloody school hostage-taking in Beslan had also planned to detonate powerful car bombs in other cities in southern Russia, a suspect in the raid told a court today.

Russian security services today killed a prominent Chechen rebel wanted for a series of planned chemical attacks, Russian news agencies reported, citing the top spokesman for Russian forces in Chechnya.

RUSSIAN security forces and police killed two militants and detained a third after the gunmen holed up in a house on the outskirts of the southern city of Nazran, police said yesterday. Two women and six children were wounded.

Russian security forces and police killed two militants and detained a third after the gunmen holed up in a house on the outskirts of the southern city of Nazran, police said today.

More than 90 people were killed and 120 wounded in the attacks in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, the regional government said today.

THOUSANDS of troops poured into a southern Russian city yesterday chasing suspected Chechen rebels who set fire to police and government buildings and killed at least 48 people in overnight attacks.

Heavily-armed militants launched near-simultaneous overnight attacks against police headquarters, border guard stations and other government offices in Ingushetia, a Russian region bordering warring Chechnya, killing 46 people including three high-ranking regional officials.

Attackers armed with grenade- and rocket-launchers seized the Interior Ministry headquarters in Ingushetia, a Russian region bordering warring Chechnya, a ministry official said today.

A powerful explosion hit the motorcade of a top regional leader in southern Russia today, slightly injuring Ingushetian President Murat Zyazikov, in what he said was probably a suicide bombing.

Russian authorities are preparing to send home a US aid worker who was reportedly held hostage by Chechen rebels.