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Russian regional leader wounded in bomb attack

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-22 20:37

NAZRAN, Russia: The head of Russia's Muslim region of Ingushetia was seriously injured on Monday in a suicide bomb attack which dealt a fresh blow to the Kremlin's fragile grip on the North Caucasus.

A suicide bomber detonated explosives as Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov's convoy drove past on the way to work at about 8.30 a.m. local time, the regional prosecutor said in a statement.

In this June 12, 2009 file photo, President of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Yevkurov (R) walks with former Ingush President Murat Zyazikov in the Kremlin. [Agencies]

Yevkurov's driver was killed and three others wounded by the blast which wrecked the armoured Mercedes and gouged a 2-metre (6ft) crater in the road, a witness told Reuters.

Yevkurov, 45, was rushed to hospital in Nazran, the largest city, where he underwent immediate surgery. A doctor said he was on artificial respiration, but a presidential aide said he was conscious and his life was "not yet" in danger.

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President Dmitry Medvedev condemned the attack as a "terrorist act" and Russia clamped tight security restrictions on Nazran.

Ingushetia has overtaken its neighbour Chechnya as the main centre of violence along Russia's turbulent southern flank, challenging the Kremlin's fragile rule and, security forces say, providing a foothold for global networks of Islamist militants.

"The crime was carried out by members of illegal armed groups to destabilise the situation in the republic," Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Prosecutor-General's main investigative unit, was quoted as saying by local news agencies.

Strong Explosion

The explosion ripped roof tiles off a nearby house and dislodged bricks from walls. Television pictures showed a burnt-out wreck of a car in a ditch at the side of the road.

Prosecutors said the blast had a force equivalent to that of 70 kg of TNT.

The hospital doctor, who asked not to be identified, said the blast was so strong that "it is hard to see how anyone could have survived."

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