RUSSIA: At least three people were killed and 30 injured yesterday when a truck bomb exploded outside the headquarters of the regional security police in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, neighbour to Chechnya.
The windows were blown out and the roof severely damaged in the building located in the administrative capital, Magas, pictures on Russian television showed. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion turned swiftly to Chechen rebels. Mr Sergei Fridinsky, the Russian deputy prosecutor general, said: "It was clearly an act of terror."
The explosion was the latest in a series of high-profile attacks that have adopted Palestinian-style suicide bombers and the use of truck bombs. They have been accompanied by frequent military clashes which continue to claim dozens of lives a month in Chechnya.
Yesterday's blast appears to be part of an escalation of violence outside the borders of Chechnya and an embarrassment to the FSB security services, long charged with fighting terrorism in the republic.
Mr Murat Zyazikov, an FSB officer with long links to Chechnya, became president of Ingushetia last year.
The latest blast came after the two significant remaining rival candidates dropped out of the Chechen presidential election race last week, paving the way for the almost certain victory of the pro-Kremlin incumbent, Akhmed Kadyrov.
Mr Malik Saidullaev, a Moscow-based Chechen businessmen, was struck off the candidates' list by the local election commission last Thursday after it allegedly found that many of the signatures to support his candidature had been falsified.
On the same day Mr Aslambek Aslakhanov, the current representative of the Duma in the federal parliament and ranked highly in opinion polls, voluntarily withdrew his candidature without any clear explanation and said he had been appointed as an adviser to the Kremlin on policy towards the country's southern districts.