Bomb kills senior Chechen official

The conflict has left Grozny in ruins

GUDERMES, Chechnya (CNN) -- The deputy head of the pro-Russian administration in Chechnya has been killed in a bomb blast at a television studio.

The blast happened in a private TV studio in the village of Avtury, according to the office of President Vladimir Putin's special aide for Chechnya.

Officials said Khasmagomed Deniyev died as a result of a "terrorist attack" by Chechen rebels during an interview.

Deniyev initially survived the explosion, but died of head wounds on the way to hospital.

A cameraman at the studio was injured in the blast and was taken to hospital for treatment, officials said.

Avtury is 30 kilometres (18 miles) southeast of the Chechen capital Grozny.

Deniyev, a senior assistant to Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration chief Akhmad Kadyrov, is the most senior figure to be assassinated by rebels fighting an 18-month separatist war in the North Caucasus republic.

Islamic rebels have repeatedly targeted senior officials in Chechnya appointed by the Russian government and therefore regarded as traitors by separatist fighters.

Earlier this month gunmen shot dead six people, including a 96-year-old ethnic Russian and her 74-year-old son, and wounded 22 others following a weekend of violence in Chechnya.

Among the casualties were two Russian servicemen killed and several others wounded when their truck blew up on a radio-controlled landmine in Grozny.

In the previous month, 15 civilians were killed in Grozny's Kalinin district alone.

Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya after failing to rein in Chechen separatists in a devastating 1994-96 war.

They returned in 1999 after rebels invaded a neighbouring Russian region and a spate of apartment-building bombings that killed 300 and which Russia blamed on rebels.

Security officials say recent attacks are an attempt by separatist rebels to undermine Russian efforts to restore order and stability to a region devastated by two bloody wars since 1994.

European leaders have urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek a political settlement to the conflict -- which he compares to the ethnic Albanian fighters in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

On Thursday, the European Union Thursday presented a resolution to the United Nations rights forum strongly condemning Russia's continued use of "disproportionate and indiscriminate force" against civilians in Chechnya.

The five-page EU text cited reports of continuing violations by Russian forces including executions, torture and arbitrary detentions in the breakaway republic.

It expressed concern over the slow pace of Russia's investigations and called on Moscow to ensure that both civilian and military prosecutors undertook "systematic, credible and exhaustive criminal investigations and prosecutions" of all forces allegedly implicated in war crimes.

But the resolution stopped short of calling for an international commission of inquiry to probe alleged mass graves and other atrocities, as demanded by rights watchdog groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

"There must be a political solution in Chechnya ... We will go on expressing concern about the developments in Chechnya," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson told a joint news conference with Putin during a meeting of EU leaders in Stockholm last month.

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Human Rights Watch: Chechnya
Chechen Republic Online
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