Suicide bombers kill 40 in Chechnya
The blast killed 40 people in the deadliest attack since the Kremlin's March poll to keep the region in its grip.
The blast in Znamenskoye, in the relatively peaceful north of the territory, wounded about 100 other people, seven weeks after a constitutional referendum that anchored the Muslim region firmly in Russia.
But a defiant President Vladimir Putin vowed not to let such attacks derail the Kremlin's peace plan. "We can not allow anything like this to happen, nor will we," he told government ministers.
Soldiers guarding the administration building, which also housed the local FSB security services, opened fire on the truck but it smashed through barriers before exploding in a fireball only yards short of the main building.
The powerful blast, in a border area north of the regional capital Grozny that has long been under Moscow's control, gutted the building and destroyed eight village houses.
"Forty people have been killed in the blast," a spokesman for Chechnya's interior ministry said.
Some 100 people were hurt in the blast, justice officials in Chechnya said.
Dozens of local residents and rescue workers struggled to free people trapped under fallen masonry and woodwork. Officials said two people had been pulled alive from the rubble.
Most of the casualties were police guarding the complex and villagers living nearby, television reports said. It was assumed the two rebels driving the truck said by the local interior ministry to be suicide bombers were killed in the explosion.
A top regional official blamed fighters loyal to fugitive rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov. But a Maskhadov spokesman said his men had played no part in the attack.
The blast brought grim news for Putin, who used his tough stance against Chechen rebels to score an easy election victory in 2000, and will cast a shadow over his annual "State of the Nation" address scheduled for Friday.
A low point for Putin came last October when Chechen rebels seized 700 hostages in a Moscow theater.
A total of 129 people and all the rebels died after Russian forces used a powerful knock-out gas to storm the building and end the siege.
Last December, a similar bomb attack on regional administration headquarters in Grozny killed about 80 people.
Putin's defiant words yesterday, however, suggested the Kremlin would press ahead with its plan to end 10 years of conflict between rebels and Russian forces. The next stage envisages elections in December for a regional president.
Pushing ahead with the scheme, Putin later ordered government officials to draft a treaty dividing executive and legislative powers between Moscow and Grozny, a key part of the drive.
A spokesman for Maskhadov, the region's former president and now a fugitive sought by Russian security forces, denied responsibility for the blast.
"Maskhadov has not once said he supports terrorism. Such methods are not acceptable for the Chechen resistance," Salambek Maigov told Ekho Moskvy radio.
But the head of the present pro-Moscow Chechen government, Akhmad Kadyrov, blamed Maskhadov's men.
"We need to be more vigilant and responsible so that no vehicles with explosives can travel around the territory of the republic," Kadyrov was quoted by Interfax as saying.
"Where did this car with explosives come from? How did it get to Znamenskoye? I have many questions," he said.
Q: How long has the Chechen conflict been going on?
A: Chechnya declared independence from Russia in November 1991, but Boris Yeltsin waited until 1994 before sending in the troops to restore Moscow's authority.
That first Chechen war ended in humiliating defeat for the Russian forces in 1996. On October 1, 1999 Russian Prime Minister (later President) Vladimir Putin went on the offensive again, launching an "anti-terrorist operation" partly triggered by a wave of apartment block bombings in Moscow and other cities, which he blamed on Chechens.
Earlier in the year, Chechen forces had also taken part in an armed attempt to establish an Islamic state in neighbouring Dagestan.
A: They want independence, or at least self-rule, and they almost got it after 1996. With Russian military forces out of the country, Chechens elected their own president in January 1997 Aslan Maskhadov, the former Russian artillery officer who had been the main rebel military commander during the war.
Under the peace deal negotiated with Moscow, a decision on Chechnya's final political status was delayed for five years.
Unfortunately Mr Maskhadov was unable to control in peacetime his more radical field commanders, and the breakaway republic descended into anarchy.
One of the culprits was Arbi Barayev, who helped to turn it into one of the hostage-taking capitals of the world.
A: Despite Moscow's insistence the "military phase" of the operation is over, Russian casualties continue to mount. Thousands of troops are stationed in Chechnya to support a puppet civilian administration appointed by the Kremlin.
The rebels keep a low profile as a rule, avoiding pitched battles that would expose them to the Russian army's massive firepower, and relying on lightning guerrilla raids. The downing of a Russian helicopter in August 2002 resulted in the single largest death toll for the Russian army since the start of World War II.
A group of Chechen rebels under one of the best-known Chechen field commanders, Ruslan Gelayev, crossed into Russia from Georgia's Pankisi Gorge in 2002. They shot down a helicopter and got into a big battle with Russian forces in the republic of Ingushetia, before trying to escape into Chechnya. After that, the Georgian and Russian presidents agreed their countries would carry out joint patrols of the border.
A: From time to time there are reports that the Russian Government is prepared to talk about peace.
There have even been contacts between Moscow and the rebel side. Recently a former speaker of the Russian parliament, Ivan Rybkin, was trying to promote a peaceful settlement. However, up to now, Moscow's heart has not been in it.
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