At least 10 die in Chechyna terror attack

At least 10 people were killed today in a new terrorist attack in Chechnya, just two days after dozens of people died in a truck bombing in the war-ravaged Caucasus republic.

Shamsail Saraliyev, an official in the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, said the attack had taken place in the settlement of Iliskhan-Yurt. He said that at least 10 people died and that many others were wounded.

Meanwhile, the death toll in a truck bombing that shattered a government compound in northern Chechnya rose to 59 as investigators pledged to hunt down the organisers of the attack.

President Vladimir Putin at a meeting with Nato-Secretary General Lord Robertson yesterday compared the bombing in Chechnya to the deadly blast in Saudi Arabia aimed at foreigners.

“The signature in both places is absolutely identical,” said Putin, who is seeking to portray Russia’s war in Chechnya as part of the international campaign against terrorism.

Colonel Ilya Shabalkin, a regional Russian commander in the Caucasus, said the mastermind of the bombing in northern Chechnya was Abu Walid, a Saudi Arabian.

Shabalkin said Abu Walid had replaced Omar Ibn al Khattab, a prominent Saudi-born warlord who is alleged to have been killed by poisoning last year in Chechnya.