| POLICE clashed with rebels in Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, today, leaving two of the separatist fighters dead and three officers wounded as violence persisted in the war-ravaged southern Russian region, an official said. The morning fighting in Grozny came after clashes and rebel attacks that killed three Russian servicemen and wounded seven others in the region in the past 24 hours, the official in the Chechnya’s Moscow-backed government said on condition of anonymity. Two of the Russian soldiers were killed and three wounded in rebel attacks on federal military positions in the region, the official said. The other Russian casualties came in fighting outside a village in southern Chechnya, he said. Russian forces targeted suspected rebel position in the mountains yesterday and today, the government official said. |