Explosion rocks Chechen capital

A massive explosion ripped through Russian Justice Ministry in the Chechen capital Grozny today, causing casualties, the Interfax news agency reported.

The blast occurred about 300 yards from the Chechen government headquarters.

The blast came the day before the Chechen State Council was to have met for its first session in the new building.

The ministry was hastily built to replace the government headquarters destroyed in a December car bombing that killed at least 70 people.

Earlier this month, a female bomber blew up a bus carrying workers from a Russian air base near Chechnya, killing herself and at least 14 people.

Two other suicide bombings in a three-day period inside Chechnya last month killed at least 78 people.

The rebel attacks have undercut Moscow’s efforts to portray the situation in the war-shattered region as stabilising.

The Russian parliament last month approved a partial amnesty in the hope of encouraging Chechnya’s rebels to abandon their fight.

The guerillas forced Russian troops out of Chechnya after a 1994-96 war, leaving the republic de facto independent.

Russian troops rolled back in 1999 after the rebels raided a neighbouring Russian region and after a series of apartment block bombings in Russia that were blamed on Chechen fighters.