Eight Chechens killed in Chechnya special operations

  14:5612/07/2009

MOSCOW, July 12 (RIA Novosti) -

Eight Chechens have been killed in special operations in three regions of Chechnya since last night, the North Caucasus republic's interior ministry said on Sunday.

During the night, police tried to stop a car for a search in the Zavodsky district of the capital, Grozny. Shots were fired from the car, and "in the return fire three members of armed groups were killed," the ministry said in a statement.

At 5:00 a.m. a similar incident occurred in the Shalinsky district. Another three Chechens were shot dead after they opened fire on police officers.

Three hours later Urus-Martan district, two more Chechen activists were killed during a shootout with police on the Goy-Chu highway. Their bodies have already been identified, the ministry statement said.

In the neighboring republic of Daghestan, five more activists were fatally shot early on Sunday in the town of Khasavyurt on the Makhachkala highway. They had opened fire after their car, travelling without vehicle registration plates, was stopped for a check, police said.

Russian serviceman wounded in Chechnya helicopter attack

09:0306/07/2009

MOSCOW, July 6 (RIA Novosti) -

A Russian serviceman was wounded when suspected activists opened fire on a Defense Ministry Mi-8 helicopter in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, a police source said on Monday.

The unknown assailants opened fire on the helicopter from a forest in the Shatoi district of southern Chechnya early on Sunday.

"As a result, a contract soldier was wounded and hospitalized," the source said, without giving specific details.

Chechen attacks and clashes remain common in Russia's North Caucasus, although the Kremlin campaign to fight separatists and terrorists in Chechnya has officially ended.

One killed, 3 injured in militant attack on convoy in Chechnya

 09:0530/06/2009

MOSCOW, June 30 (RIA Novosti) -

One soldier was killed and a further three injured when Chechen fighters attacked a police convoy in the Vedeno District of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya, a police source said on Tuesday.

"The convoy - a GAZelle and two UAZ vehicles - was traveling from Khankala," when it was attacked by around 10 militants, the spokesperson said.

The source said that a priest was among the injured.

The latest incident follows an explosion in western Chechnya on Sunday which left three police officers wounded.

The recent increase in violence coincided with Moscow's decision to formally end its decade-long counterterrorism operation in Chechnya, which witnessed two brutal separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Russia's North Caucasus has seen an upsurge in violence of late, with the killing of Daghestan's Interior Minister Adilgerei Magomedtagirov and an assassination attempt on the Ingush President Yunus-bek Yevkurov this month.