Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, August 11, 2003
Eight Russian Officers Killed in Chechnya
Eight Russian soldiers and police died in rebel attacks in a day of violence throughout Chechnya, the region's Kremlin-backed administration said Sunday.
Eight Russian soldiers and police died in rebel attacks in a day of violence throughout Chechnya, the region's Kremlin-backed administration said Sunday.
Russian warplanes bombed suspected rebel positions in one region of the republic, and artillery pounded two other regions, an official in the administration said.
Five of the soldiers were killed in attacks on military positions, one died when a military vehicle hit a mine, another while trying to defuse an explosive device and a policeman was killed in an attack on a police vehicle, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Chechnya's rebels launch daily small attacks on Russian forces, who far outnumber the insurgents but have been unable to uproot them in nearly four years of fighting.
The Russian army withdrew from Chechnya in 1996 at the end of a disastrous 20-month war against separatists, but swept in again September 1999 following incursions by Chechnya-based rebels into Dagestan and after the deaths of some 300 people in apartment-building explosions that officials blamed on the rebels.