WORLD BRIEFING / RUSSIA
Nine Chechen policemen sent to help crush an insurgency in the neighboring Russian republic of Ingushetia were gunned down, Interfax reported, intensifying the cycle of violence now unfolding in the region.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov ordered his troops across the border into Ingushetia to avenge a suicide bomb attack against a fellow Kremlin appointee in the region, Ingush leader Yunus Bek Yevkurov, who was critically injured.
The militants ambushed a convoy of Kadyrov’s troops, firing automatic weapons and grenade launchers in one of the deadliest attacks in the volatile North Caucasus region in recent years.
Both republics are in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region in southern Russia, where the Kremlin is facing an insurgency that has intensified in recent months, striking at local officials and security personnel.
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