Chechnya Blast Kills 7 Russians

An explosion in a cafe in Chechnya on Sunday killed at least seven Russian soldiers, Interfax news agency said, and Chechen rebels said they were responsible.

Interfax quoted security sources saying the explosion had taken place in the afternoon in the village of Chiri-Yurt, about 18 miles south of the Chechen capital Grozny, and that the cafe's female owner had also died. Four people were injured.

It said windows were shattered in surrounding buildings.

Chechen rebel spokesman Movladi Udugov, speaking by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location, said 14 members of the crack OMON police had died in the blast, eight of them officers. Two women working in the cafe had also died.

"A Chechen diversionary group caused the blast with 22 pounds of explosive placed inside the cafe and at the exit," he said.

Udugov said Russian troops had sealed off the village, a strategic center leading to the Argun gorge, and helicopters were patrolling overhead. He said according to Russian communications intercepted by the rebels, soldiers were unable to find the bodies of five of the dead in the rubble.

Udugov also reported clashes between Russian troops and insurgents in two districts south of Grozny. In one battle at Zhani-Vedeno, in the Vedeno gorge southeast of Grozny, he said at least 10 Russian soldiers had died, with rebel losses standing at one dead and six injured.

There was no one available for comment at the office of the Kremlin's Chechnya representative Sergei Yastrzhembsky.

Russia has lost more than 2,500 troops since pushing into the region a year ago to crush separatists. It took control of Grozny, now largely reduced to ruins, in February and formally controls most of Chechen territory.

But Russian troops suffer casualties almost weekly in raids launched by the rebels.

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