Bombings and Shootouts Reported Across Chechnya

Interfax reported on July 3 that a homemade explosive device went off in Grozny’s Oktyabrsky district on the evening of July 2, wounding a policeman. A law-enforcement source told the news agency that the device was detonated by remote control as a three-man police patrol was passing by. The explosion wounded a policeman, who was taken to the hospital. According to the same source, a second bombing was narrowly averted when police discovered an explosive device inside a Zhiguli car parked on the side of the road 20 meters from the first blast. The device consisted of, among other things, a metal bucket filled with plastic explosives and steel scraps that was wired to a radio receiver. The source said that engineers defused the homemade bomb.

On July 1, unidentified attackers fired automatic weapons and grenade launchers at a vehicle carrying servicemen on a highway near the settlement of Agishty, which is located on the administrative border between Chechnya’s Vedeno and Shali districts. According to Newsru.com, one serviceman was killed and two were injured in the attack. RIA Novosti reported that a resident of Agishty was also injured in the shooting. In addition, the website reported that security forces discovered a cache of hidden explosives in a wooded area on the outskirts of the Shali district village of Duba-Yurt. The cache included five kilograms of plastic explosives, 15 detonators, 17 meters of fuse wire and a circuit board from a radio receiver. The cache was destroyed in a controlled explosion.

Citing a Chechen Interior Ministry source, Interfax reported on June 29 that unidentified attackers detonated an explosive device near Agishty as servicemen from various Defense Ministry units were conducting a reconnaissance engineering operation. The blast wounded a platoon commander and two other contract servicemen. The same source said that one rebel had been killed in a separate clash between security forces and members of an “illegal armed formation” near the Vedeno district village of Dargo. “One serviceman from the Vostok battalion of the 42nd motor-rifle division received a bullet wound,” the source said. “He was taken to the hospital at the Khankala military base.” In addition, two policemen in other districts of Chechnya were wounded as a result of the “careless handling” of weapons.

Interfax reported on June 25 that three unidentified attackers fired on a temporary Interior Troops base near the Vedeno district village of Khatuni. A law-enforcement source told the news agency that none of the servicemen was hurt in the incident and that they had returned fire. On June 24, a serviceman was wounded when an improvised explosive device went off as an armored personnel carrier transporting Interior Troops was passing near the Vedeno district village of Elistanzhi, a law-enforcement source told ITAR-Tass. The source said that the bomb was in a half-liter plastic bottle that the attackers had tied to a tree trunk. Later, on June 24, unidentified attackers fired a grenade launcher at a temporary Interior Troops base in the Shali district center, wounding one serviceman.

Kavkazky Uzel reported on June 21 that residents of villages in Chechnya’s mountains were continuing to leave their homes because the mountainous areas of the republic were regularly being shelled by government forces. The website quoted Yelena Burtina of the “Grazhdanskoe sodeistvie” (Civil Assistance) Committee as saying that the main reason people were leaving their villages in Chechnya’s mountains is because of the violence on the part of the military.