Latest clashes leave 11 policemen wounded in Chechnya

The latest clashes have left 11 police officers injured in Chechnya, officials said Monday.

In one attack late Sunday, several unidentified gunmen fired automatic weapons at a police patrol vehicle in the provincial capital, Grozny, wounding all five officers inside, Chechnya's branch of Russia's Interior Ministry said in a statement. The officers were hospitalized.

The attackers fled, the statement said.

Early Monday, a local officer was injured when an unidentified attacker fired a grenade launcher at his car in Grozny.

Two more officers were wounded in a land mine explosion in the city Monday. And three policemen were wounded in a rebel ambush in the southern Shali region Monday, the provincial Interior Ministry said.

A Russian army soldier was wounded in a bombing in the southern Shatoi region Sunday, it said.

Chechnya, devastated by more than a decade of separatist fighting, remains plagued by violence. Large-scale battles ended years ago, but separatists continue to stage hit-and-run raids on federal troops and forces of the Moscow-backed regional government.