Three dead in Grozny bus bombing

At least three people were killed and eight others injured in Chechnya today when a bus hit a land mine and blew up in the capital Grozny.

Russian Interior Ministry officials said it was a terrorist attack.

A car carrying ministry staff was driving in front of the bus when the explosion happened, an official said, adding that the mine may have been targeting that vehicle.

It was the latest violent incident in Chechnya, where two separate suicide attacks killed at least 78 people this month.

The bus was travelling through the city’s Oktyabrskaya district near the main bus station when the mine exploded. A Justice Ministry official said it was a minibus and not a large passenger bus.

For much of its three and half years, the latest Chechen war has been marked by almost daily reports of rebels killing Russian soldiers and the army barraging rebel positions with bombs and heavy guns – neither side appearing to gain a strategic advantage.

Although Russian forces vastly outnumber the rebels and have superior weapons, the rebels fight back with stealth and small hit-and-run attacks, even within Grozny, which has an enormous Russian military presence.

Underlining the extent to which fighters are able to infiltrate the capital, Russian officials yesterday reported finding a huge rebel weapons cache in the city, including two anti-tank rocket launchers.

Russian forces left Chechnya in 1996 after 20 months of fighting separatist rebels bogged down into a violent stalemate.

They returned in 1999 after Chechnya-based insurgents made raids into neighbouring Dagestan and after about 300 people died in apartment block bombings that Russian officials blamed on the rebels.