Russian soldier injured when bomb explodes in Grozny, two servicemen killed in crash

A bomb exploded as a Russian military convoy was traveling Friday through the Chechen capital, Grozny, the Chechen Interior Ministry said.

One soldier in the convoy was injured, ministry spokesman Ruslan Atayev said.

Separately, two serviceman were killed when an armored vehicle plunged off a cliff in the mountainous south of Chechnya, said a duty officer at the Russian military headquarters in Chechnya. Other soldiers suffered minor injuries in the crash, which the military blamed on driver error.

Meanwhile, police found an ammunition cache on the Chechen border with Dagestan, according to the southern federal district branch of the Russian Interior Ministry. The arsenal discovered Thursday included 17 anti-aircraft shells, nine hand grenades, 300 ammunition cartridges and a homemade explosive.

Russian forces withdrew from Chechnya in 1996, after a bruising 20-month war that left the region de facto independent, and returned in 1999 after a series of apartment building explosions in Russia and after Chechnya-based rebels raided the neighboring region of Dagestan.

AP