| Five Russian soldiers and a Chechen policeman were killed in fighting with rebels and two other soldiers died when their truck ran over a mine. Four of the soldiers were killed when Russian positions came under fire a total of 15 times over the past. Another died when a military car came under fire in Starye Atagi outside the Chechen capital Grozny. A Chechen policeman was killed and two others injured in a clash with rebels in Grozny in which one rebel also was killed. The fatal mine blast, near the village of Bamut, also wounded four other soldiers, the official said. Much of the past decade’s second Chechen war, which began in September 1999, has been a bloody stalemate in which Russian forces try to uproot rebels from their bases in the republic’s southern mountains. The rebels respond with hit-and-run attacks and remote-detonated explosives. |