Five Chechen villagers including the local administrative chief were killed by a group of armed men at Kulary, a rural district near the capital Grozny, the Interfax news agency reported on Monday.
The armed men, wearing uniforms, approached a group of villagers early Sunday and after a short discussion opened fire on them with assault rifles, shouting "Allah akbar" (God is great), Interfax said, quoting interior ministry officials in Chechnya.
Four of the villagers, one a novice policeman, were killed and four others seriously wounded.
Around the same time, four men burst into the house of the local administrator and shot her dead, leaving her husband and child unharmed, Interfax said.
Police officials said they believed a rebel band had killed the five villagers because of their contacts with Russian federal authorities.
Russian investigators said they had arrested two people and charged them in connection with three car bomb attacks in the Russia's Stavropol region bordering Chechnya and in Karachayevo-Cherkesia, which killed 23 people and wounded around 150 others.
This brings the number of suspects arrested to six, Interfax quoted a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office, Leonid Troshin, as saying. All six have been charged with terrorism.
The three blasts had been planned by a group of 10 men from the region who were all Wahhabi Muslims, Interfax quoted a deputy prosecutor, Yury Biryukov, as saying.
He said investigators had gathered "irrefutable proof" that the blasts had been ordered by the Jordanian-born Chechen warlord Khattab, one of the rebel force's most feared fighters -- MOSCOW (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
