20 killed in suicide attack on Russian police station

At least 20 people, including policemen, were killed and over 60 injured when a suicide bomber on Monday rammed an explosive-laden truck into the gates of a police station in a southern Russian city in the restive Ingushetia region, neighbouring Chechnya.

The suicide attack in Nazran, the Caucasian Republic of Ingushetia's largest city, took place when policemen were lined up in the courtyard at the start of the morning shift. "At about 09:08 am Moscow time (10.38 am IST), a yellow Gazelle truck broke through a gate at a check point near the building. A powerful explosion followed shortly after that," a local investigator was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

Policemen had fired shots at the truck, but failed to stop it. The blast caused a fire that destroyed a weapons room where the ammunition was detonated. At least 20 people were killed, Svetlana Gorbakova of the regional branch of the Investigative Committee of the Russian prosecutor general's office said.

However, the death toll figures and the number of injured varied. At least 57 people were hurt, and ten of them are reportedly in a critical condition. Another senior official said 92 people had been injured. Russia's impoverished and mainly Muslim North Caucasus regions have seen a rise in violence in recent months.

Attacks on police, officials and troops have been reported almost daily in Ingushetia and neighbouring Dagestan that border Chechnya, which has witnessed two separatist wars in the last decade.

Moscow is sending a high-level investigation team to Nazran, a spokesman for the Investigation Committee of the prosecutor general's office said. The injured, some of them in serious condition, were taken to hospitals in Nazran and were being treated, reports said.

Image: Policemen and fire fighters work at the site of a suicide attack at a police station in Nazran in southern Russia | Photograph: Reuters