Russian suicide bomber hits police HQ

A suicide bomber attacked a Russian police station today killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 100 others.

The bombing was the deadliest in years in the troubled southern region, denting Kremlin claims that the area was stabilising after two wars in Chechnya and mounting violence in surrounding provinces since 1994.

While most fighting in Chechnya has ended, Islamic militants continue to mount regular hit-and-run attacks and skirmishes in neighbouring provinces.

The attacker rammed a truck through the gates of the Nazran city police headquarters, in Ingushetia province, and detonated more than 400lbs of explosives as officers were lining up in the internal courtyard for a morning check.

Police shot at the truck, but failed to stop it before it exploded in the middle of the courtyard. The blast left a huge crater and triggered a raging fire that destroyed a weapons room where ammunition detonated.

It took rescue teams several hours to search for victims in the rubble. A nearby apartment building and several office buildings were also damaged, and burned-out cars littered the street.

At least 20 people were killed and 100 wounded.

Russia’s Emergency Ministry sent a special plane to take some of the wounded to Moscow for treatment.

Ingushetia’s Kremlin-appointed president, badly wounded in another suicide bombing in June, said the attack had been organised by militants trying to avenge recent security sweeps in the forests along the mountainous border with Chechnya.

“It was an attempt to destabilise the situation and sow panic,” Yunus-Bek Yevkurov said.

He blamed Chechen separatist warlord Doku Umarov for the June attack on his convoy, saying the perpetrators had been be tracked down.

He also accused the United States, Britain and Israel of fomenting instability in the North Caucasus, saying “the West will try to prevent Russia from restoring its Soviet-era might.”

Rights groups said arbitrary arrests, torture and killings by security forces had helped swell the ranks of rebels in Ingushetia under Mr Yevkurov’s predecessor, Murat Zyazikov.

Mr Yevkurov, a former officer of the Russian GRU military intelligence service, has promised to end abuses and sought to negotiate pardons for some rebels who would agree to put down their weapons.