Six die as gunmen storm parliament in Chechnya

ISLAMIC insurgents including a suicide bomber stormed Chechnya’s parliament, leaving six people dead and 17 injured in one of the most brazen attacks on the provincial capital in months, officials said.

Ten years after the latest separatist war in the volatile region in southern Russia and after a decade of roundups and disappearances of Islamic suspects, it appears that Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed administration still can’t stop separatists from trying to blow up parliament.

Yesterday’s attack left a grim scene around the parliament building, with body parts and a decapitated corpse lying on the ground near shattered window glass.

Interior Ministry special forces paced the area in camouflage fatigues, wielding grenade-launching Kalashnikov rifles.

Chechnya, part of Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region, has been battling an Islamist insurgency for years despite the iron rule of its Moscow-backed president, Ramzan Kadyrov. The exact motive for yesterday’s attack was not known, but Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev was in Grozny for talks with Kadyrov about recent violence.

One militant set off a bomb at the gates of the parliament complex in Grozny, the Chechen capital, killing himself and wounding others, said Chechen police spokesman Ramzan Bekkhoyev.

At least two other gunmen ran into the building shouting “Allahu akbar!” — “God is great” in Arabic — as they opened fire on the people inside, he said.

Two police officers and one parliamentary official were killed in the attack and at least two insurgents were slain in an ensuing firefight, officials said.

Nurgaliyev said the insurgents had tried to get into the main parliamentary hall.

Russia fought two wars with Chechen separatists in the 1990s before finally installing a loyal government there in 2000. Since then, most of the Islamist insurgents have moved over into the neighbouring Russian republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, with terrorist attacks seldom striking at the heart of Grozny in recent years.