Two suicide bombers drove a truck packed with explosives into a government building in the north of Chechnya today, killing40 people and wounding around 70 more.
The explosion in the town of Znamenskoye, north of the regionalcapital Grozny, was the most serious rebel attack since aKremlin-organised constitutional referendum in March anchoredthe Muslim territory firmly in Russia.
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An official at Chechnya's justice ministry said the explosion destroyed the two storey offices of the Federal Security Service, the intelligence agency that leads Russia's campaignin Chechnya.
Soldiers guarding the building opened fire on the truckto stop it, but it smashed through concrete security barriers before exploding.
The district police headquarters and the local administration building were also in ruins, he said. The government buildings had been full of people returning to work after a long series of May holidays.
Witnesses said windows up to 500 yards away were shattered by the explosion.
But Russian President Vladimir Putinvowed not to allow the bomb to derail the Kremlin's effortsto bring peace to the rebel province."The actions . . . were directed at stopping the process ofbringing about a political settlement to the situation inChechnya," he said in Moscow. "Wecannot allow anything like this to happen, nor will we."
Last month, 16 people were killed in an attack on a minibus in the breakaway republic in a blast claimed by separatist rebels who have vowed to step up attacks to disrupt the results of a controversial March vote that sealed Chechnya's place in the Russian Federation.
Agencies