MOSCOW – At least four police officers died and four others were wounded Sunday in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, in Russia’s North Caucasus region, when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives as the officers were trying to determine his identity.
“Beside the metal detectors located at the entrance to the concert hall, the ... police noticed a suspicious young man. When they decided to detain and identify him the man detonated (his bomb),” according to a Russian Interior Ministry communique.
Russian authorities emphasized that the officers were able to prevent a large-scale terrorist attack, given that the suicide bomber was evidently intending to attend a popular concert on Grozny Day.
The Interior Ministry identified the terrorist as a young man from Grozny, “who left his home two months ago and about whom his relatives had known nothing since that time.”
Chechnya, where Russian security forces fought local terrorist groups from 1999-2009, is – along with Dagestan and Ingushetia – one of Russia’s most unstable regions.
However, Russian human rights activists accuse Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov of establishing a police state in the territory.
The conflict-ridden North Caucasus, comprised of seven republics within the Russian Federation, is the scene of frequent attacks and armed clashes between Russian forces and Islamist groups
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