Another terror act in Chechnya

A terror act, which fortunately caused no victims, was committed in Chechnya on Monday. An explosive device installed on the rails under a diesel-locomotive shunter went off not far from the railways station of Gudermes, Chechnya's second largest city, the Interior Department of the Southern Federal District told RIA Novosti today.

The explosion slightly damaged the locomotive and crashed sleepers, making a crater 1.5 metres in diameter on the spot.

Law enforcement officers found pieces of wire and fragments of the explosive device nearby.

The Chechen Ministry of the Interior reports that on the same day an officer of a local police department was abducted in a village of the Shali district in the southeast of the republic. Right before dawn a dozen people, equipped with automatic rifles, masked and camouflaged, broke into his house, beat him up and drove the tied officer away in a car without a registration plate on in an unknown direction.

Investigation into both cases is underway.