Around 15 people were killed and another 20 injured on Tuesday when an armoured police carrier was blown up by rebels in Russia's Chechnya, officials said. Itar-Tass news agency quoted local Prime Minister Sergei Abramov as saying the dead included 11 policeman and three civilians. A member of the FSB state security service also died.
Officials of Chechnya's pro-Moscow government said the attack took place in the village of Znamenskoye, about 60 km (40 miles) north-west of the regional capital, Grozny.
Moscow has been trying for years to crush a separatist insurgency in mainly Muslim Chechnya. It has most of the region under control, but police and troops still die daily, mainly in Grozny or the remote mountain villages.
Znamenskoye, like most of Chechnya's low-lying north, has been largely untouched by the war that has raged in the region for a decade, although a suicide bombing killed 59 people in the village in 2003.
"Today a terrorist act was committed ... and as a result people have been killed, people have been injured and people have been seriously injured," said pro-Moscow President Alu Alkhanov in a televised statement.
"Overall, more than 35 people have been harmed. They have been given first aid, and sent to the nearest hospitals."
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