Russia has revised down the death toll of a Wednesday suicide
bombing in Chechnya to eight.
Chechen Prosecutor General Vladimir Kravchenko told Itar-Tass at
the scene that eight people were killed when a female suicide
bomber blew herself up at a crowded religious event in the eastern
village of Iliskhan-Yurt.
The woman attacker exploded the bomb when the head of the Chechen
Civil Administration Akhmat Kadyrov was making a statement. Kadyrov
was not hurt. Two of his bodyguards were injured.
There has been suspicion that another suicide woman attacker had
been in the festive crowd. However, she failed to detonate the
explosive device, which was later rendered harmless by bomb
disposal experts.
Earlier, Interfax quoted a Chechen security official as saying that
over 20 people were killed in the suicide bombing.
This is the second major terrorist attack, which took place in
Chechnya since the beginning of this week. On May 12, terrorists
blew up a truck stuffed with large amount of explosives near an
administrative compound in the village of Znamenskoye in Chechnya's
Nadterechny district, killing 59 people.
(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2003)