Chechen leader killed in Grozny blast
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-09 15:45

A land mine exploded during Victory Day celebrations Sunday in a stadium in Grozny,Chechnya, killing Chechen leader Akhmad Kadyrov and a senior Russian military commander, Chechnya's Interior Ministry said.

Akhmad Kadyrov  [Reuters]

An official in the Chechen Interior Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 10 people were killed and up to 100 injured.

A Chechen Interior Ministry officer said that Kadyrov -- the Moscow-backed leader of the rebel region -- died of wounds 30 minutes after the explosion, and that Gol. Gen. Valery Baranov, head of the Joint Army Command of the North Caucasus, died at the scene.

The explosion happened underneath a VIP-seating area during a ceremony in the Dynamo stadium that was attended by senior Chechen officials. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said that numerous people were injured.

Russia's NTV television broadcast footage of the seating section collapsing into a jagged hole of torn wooden planks, sending up a plume of brown smoke. Panicked people dressed in their Sunday best clambered over the seating bleachers. One man was shown carrying a bloodied child, while men in uniform dragged a man covered in blood away from the broken seating area. Shots rang out into the air.

Sergei Kozhemyaka, a duty officer at the Emergency Situations Ministry in southern Russia, said the stadium was quickly evacuated. Kozhemyaka said that a second land mine was found near the VIP seats. Russia's Echo of Moscow radio reported that numerous people were detained.

Russia marks the Allied victory over the Nazis every May 9 with military parades and fireworks around the country.

Security was especially tight across Russia. In 2002, a bomb exploded during a Victory Day military parade in the Caspian Sea port of Kaspiisk, killing 43 people, including 12 children.

Russian troops have been fighting Chechen insurgents from much of the last decade. The latest war began in September 1999. Despite superior numbers and fire power, Russian troops have been unable to uproot the rebels from their mountainous hideouts or banish them entirely from Grozny.

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