Policemen and a Senior Rebel Killed in Chechnya

Newsru.com reported on September 6 that four policemen in Chechnya were killed in two separate shooting incidents. In one of the attacks, two Interior Ministry Internal Troops servicemen died after they were targeted first by a bomb blast and then by gunfire. There was no indication of exactly where the incident took place. The second attack took place in the Naursk district village of Alpatovo, where a police unit from the Republic of Buryatia came under fire and two servicemen were killed.

Quoting Chechnya’s Interior Ministry, the Associated Press reported on September 4 that a clash between security forces and gunmen who attacked a school and house in the village of Gukhoi in southern Chechnya killed one policeman and wounded four others. The ministry said the attack was mounted by about five gunmen armed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons and that the gunmen were not apprehended.

Chechnya’s Interior Ministry reported on August 24 that the shootout in Grozny left two policemen and Rustam Basaev, a high-placed associate of rebel leader Doku Umarov, dead. As quoted by the Moscow Times on August 27, the ministry said that officers had stopped a suspicious man on a street in Grozny on the evening of August 23 to check his documents when the man opened fire on them with a pistol. The man then fled to a nearby apartment building, which police then surrounded. Two officers and the suspect were killed in the ensuing shootout. Basaev’s death was confirmed by the separatist Kavkaz-Center website.