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Eight Die in Chechnya as Clashes Intensify
SLEPTSOVSK, Russia, June 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The daily round of clashes between Muslim separatists and Russian military troops left eight dead, including two Chechen civilians, news agencies reported.
The two civilians were killed when their car hit an anti-personnel mine outside the village of Staryie Atagi, a Russian interior ministry official was quoted by some news agencies as saying.
The driver and his woman passenger died instantly when the blast ripped through their Zhiguly-type vehicle around 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Chechen capital Grozny, the French news agency AFP said.
It wasn't clear who was responsible for planting the landmine.
The Russian interior ministry said federal troops had shot dead a suspected fighter after he opened fire with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle during an identity check Saturday in the Kurchaloi region east of Grozny, ITAR-TASS reported.
Two other fighters were killed, and a third arrested, when they were surprised by ministry interior troops while trying to plant a landmine in Dyshne-Vedeno, around 45 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of Grozny, ITAR-TASS added.
Meanwhile a Chechen commander warned Saturday that Chechen fighters in the wartorn republic would not give up fighting until they had "exterminated" all the Russian troops occupying the region, news agencies reported.
Chechnya's defense minister General Mogomed Khanbiyev said the attacks Saturday in the breakaway republic's two main cities had killed three Russian troops and wounded more than a dozen others.
According to news agencies two federal soldiers died and three others were wounded in Chechnya's raids on government positions in the Chechen capital Grozny, Khanbiyev said.
A Chechen bomb in the republic's second city Gudermes also destroyed a Russian armored vehicle, killing one serviceman and wounding six others, while six more troops were wounded in attacks on military and interior ministry buildings in Shali, 25 kilometers (15 miles) southeast of Grozny.
"The attacks (on Russian positions) will continue until all the occupiers have been exterminated," Khanbiyev said.
Russia launched its military crackdown, self-declared "anti-terrorist" campaign, against Islamic fighters in Chechnya on October 1, 1999, but has failed to stem the daily Chechen attacks and explosions.
Chechen fighters say they want to break away from the Russian federation after years of heavy-handed Soviet era repression of Islam and discrimination against Muslims.
Russia denies the charges and labels the separatists "terrorists."
Russia's interior ministry announced Saturday that 62 of its military policemen serving in the breakaway republic of Chechnya had been killed since the beginning of this year, while another 253 had been wounded.
However, federal troops have killed more than 11,000 Chechen fighters over the past 21 months, according to the Russian military command, news agencies reported.
There was no independent confirmation of the report.
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