Chechen police discovered a large homemade bomb in a car they stopped near Grozny, and there were concerns that a second car they did not manage to head off could also contain explosives, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
The police officers tried to stop the two small, Russian-made sedans for inspection Tuesday outside the village of Pobedinskoye, said Roman Shchekotin, spokesman for the Southern Federal District office of the Interior Ministry. Instead of stopping, the people in the cars opened fire. Two people then jumped from one of the cars into the other and made their getaway.
Police found a metal box in the abandoned vehicle filled with 60 kilograms of ammonium nitrates and aluminum powder, two electric batteries and two 400-gram sticks of TNT, Shchekotin said. He added that police and security service officers were searching for the second car in hopes of heading off a possible terrorist attack.
Meanwhile, police detained a suspected rebel in Dagestan, the regional Interior Ministry said Wednesday. Tagir Dadayev, who is suspected of belonging to a gang headed by purported Islamic warlord Rappani Khalilov, was captured Tuesday in the town of Dylym, on the border with Chechnya.
Also on Tuesday, a prominent Islamic faith healer, Maksharip Belkharoyev, was shot and killed by six masked gunmen who broke into his house in the village of Alkhasty in Ingushetia. His adult daughter was gravely wounded, Shchekotin said. Belkharoyev had frequently spoken out against Islamic extremism.
In Kabardino-Balkaria, the local legislature confirmed the Kremlin's candidate to replace longtime leader Valery Kokov, who has been ill and resigned earlier this month. The republic's new president, Arsen Kanokov, is a member of United Russia and the founder of a Moscow-based holding with interests in retail, construction and banking. 
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