Officials: One civilain killed, 3 wounded in attacks in Chechnya

March 24, 2007 - (The Associated Press) ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia: Unidentified armed men opened fire at a group of women picking garlic in a forest in Chechnya on Saturday, killing one and injuring two others, officials in the province said.

The incident took place in southern Chechnya, after the women unsuccessfully tried to gesture that they posed no danger, said a spokesman for Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov.

One woman died at the scene and the other two have been hospitalized in serious condition. An investigation has been launched, the official said.

Another Chechen civilian was wounded Saturday in a separate incident when the tractor he was driving blew up on a roadside bomb, Chechnya's Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Chechnya, a mostly Muslim region in southern Russia, has been plagued by separatist conflict for more than a decade. The violence in recent years has increasingly spread to other parts of the impoverished Russian North Caucasus.

In a separate incident Friday night, a soldier in a military unit in the southern Volgograd region was killed as a result of careless handling of an explosive device, regional police said. Such incidents are common in the Russian army, plagued by funding shortages, poor training and abuse of younger soldiers by older conscripts.

From: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/24/europe/EU-GEN-Russia-Restive-South.php