MOSCOW, July 5 (RIA Novosti) – One soldier has been killed and three policemen injured during a clash with militants in the Urus-Martanovsky region of the North Caucasus Republic of Chechnya, police said Friday.
The shootout took place Thursday near the village of Tangi-Chu to the south of the Chechen capital Grozny, when a reconnaissance operation by security forces encountered a group of gunmen, according to a police spokesman.
The incident is the latest in a recent string of clashes in mostly calm Chechnya. Two policemen were killed and 17 injured in a firefight with militants Saturday, while two soldiers died in a roadside blast on April 28.
Chechnya was a hotbed of Islamist militancy in the 2000s after two bloody separatist wars that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, but in recent years a low-level insurgency in the North Caucasus has largely been confined to neighboring republics.
Rebel warlord Doku Umarov called on Wednesday for his followers to to disrupt the 2014 Winter Olympics, which will take place in Sochi, some 300 miles (480 kilometers) from Chechnya.
The appeal prompted a furious riposte from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who vowed Umarov would soon be killed. “We are looking for him every day,” said Kadyrov. “He’s the devil and I am certain that we will eliminate him before the Olympics.”
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