May 12 Blast in Chechnya Under Investigation, No Death Figures Yet Released

At least ten police officers were killed at Znamensky, in Chechnya's Nadterechny District, as a car exploded Monday morning outside an administrative compound here, spokespeople for the republic's interim administration report. They say the exact number of losses in dead is not clear yet, but that some 120 people were wounded, 57 of them critically. The families of all the victims will get monetary compensations, they pledge.

Akhmad Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's administration, has reportedly ordered that all entertainment events in the republic be cancelled for the three days ahead.

The bomb had the explosive of about one ton of TNT, and left a crater two meters deep and sixteen meters in diameter, says Sultan Ahmethanov, head of the Nadterechny district administration. It destroyed the police and Town Hall headquarters partially and eight residential buildings totally, he reports.

The Chechen Prosecutor's Office points to the stylistic similarity of today's terror act and the one committed last December outside the republican government headquarters in the capital of Grozny.