Bombers killed in Chechen blast

MOSCOW, Russia -- Two of the three people killed in a market place explosion in Chechnya were carrying the device that exploded, a local Interior Ministry official has said.

Interfax news agency quoted the Chechnya prosecutor's office as saying four of those injured were in a serious condition.

Vladimir Matyushkin, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in the North Caucasus, told RTR state television: "The terrorist and his accomplice were killed when the bomb went off as they were carrying it in a plastic bag towards a police unit.

"Unfortunately a civilian also died."

Local authorities arrested a number of people who were being questioned in connection with the blast.

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The third fatality was a 10-year-old boy whose mother was among the 11 people injured in the blast in the central marketplace in Gudermes, Chechnya's second town, on Saturday.

The Gudermes marketplace is close to a Russian police barracks, but an official at the office of Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin's chief spokesman on Chechnya, said no policemen had been hurt in the blast.

Interfax said an investigating team, headed by Chechen prosecutor Vsyevolod Chyernov, was still working on the case in Gudermes.

The attack came a day after two explosions targeting a military unit and a police station rocked Buinaksk, a town in the Russian region of Dagestan, which also borders Chechnya.

The bombs caused slight damage to buildings but no injuries.

A third bomb, planted near the regional police headquarters, was safely defused, Dagestan's Interior Ministry said.

The Russian side has blamed Chechen separatists for the numerous blasts at outdoor markets both in and around the rebel republic of Chechnya.