FEMALE SUCIDE BOMBER INJURES 6 IN CHECHNYA

GROZNY, Russia – A suicide bomber wounded six people in the capital of Chechnya on Wednesday, officials said — the latest in a series of attacks undermining Kremlin claims that stability is returning to the southern Russian region.

• Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov said the bomber was a woman — a fact that harkened back to the early 1990s, when female suicide bombers called "black widows" became a hallmark of the Chechen insurgency. Two Russian passenger airliners were destroyed by "black widows" and others committed fatal bombings near Red Square and at a Moscow subway station.
• Wednesday's attacker detonated her belt when two police officers walked by, seriously injuring them and wounding four civilians in a nearby car, officials said. Earlier reports said the two policemen had been killed.
• Meanwhile in Dagestan, a region bordering Chechnya to the east, police killed a militant fighter on the outskirts of the capital, Makhachkala, a regional Interior Ministry official said.
• The blast in Grozny was another symbolic blow to the Chechen capital, much of which was reduced to rubble in the two wars between separatist rebels and Russian troops over the past 15 years.

Source: AP