Posted on 10/10/2002 11:43:04 AM PDT by Angelus Errare
Blast in Chechnya, at Least 10 Reported Dead Thu Oct 10, 2:29 PM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - At least 10 people were killed Thursday when an explosion tore through a police station in Grozny, war-ravaged capital of Russia's rebel Chechnya (news - web sites) region, Russian news agencies said.
The explosion, which one city official said was almost certainly caused by a bomb, reduced the four-story building in the city's Zavodsky district to rubble and agencies said several other people were trapped in the debris.
At least 12 other people were rushed to the hospital with injuries, some of them serious, a local official of the emergencies ministry was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
The explosion took place on the floor below a staff meeting of pro-Moscow Chechen police officials and one witness said many of the dead and injured were police.
"The explosion was premeditated. Somebody from the building itself carried in an explosive device," Supyan Makhchayev, Grozny deputy mayor, told Russian first channel television.
Russia has been fighting to quell a separatist revolt in the North Caucasus region for most of the past 10 years.
The explosion, if it turns out to have been caused by a rebel bomb, will be a further challenge to Kremlin claims that Russian forces are increasingly bringing the security situation under control and an embarrassment to Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) as he met British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) outside Moscow.
Although Moscow says the military phase of the war is over, it has failed to produce a long-term political solution to the conflict, which continues to claim lives daily among Russian forces and civilians in Chechnya.
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