Chechen troops 'eliminate' rebels in bloody battle for parliament

Islamic militants today stormed the parliament in war-torn Chechnya, seizing MPs and killing two police guards before special forces recaptured the building in a bloody shoot-out.

At least four rebels died — two suicide bombers and two more who were killed as troops retook the building.

The dramatic strike in the capital Grozny by suspected Muslim extremists will be an acute embarrassment to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin who had claimed to have won a long-running conflict in the tinderbox province.

"All the MPs are alive, they have been taken outside the parliament compound and are safe," said Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who took personal control of the operation.

"As a result of co-ordinated actions, a special operation lasting 15 to 20 minutes was carried out to eliminate the militants and free the MPs and technical staff who were inside," he said.

All the militants were "destroyed" by a 12-strong unit of special forces riot police, he said. Seventeen people were wounded, including the parliament's chief of staff Iskam Baykhakov.

The short-lived siege began when a vehicle carrying terrorists drove into the parliament complex with carscarrying politicians.

"We heard shots in the courtyard and we knew they were trying to take us hostage. We managed to take refuge on the third floor where we stayed until the end of the operation," said a spokesman for the Chechen parliament, Zelim Yakhikhanov.

Two militants blew themselves up, killing two policemen. The speaker, Dukuvakha Abdurakhmanov, was evacuated from the parliament.

In a further blow to the Kremlin, Russian interior minister Rashid Nurgaliyev was visiting Grozny when militants staged their attack.

It was interior ministry troops deployed by Mr Putin who finally brought the separatist region to heel after two bloody wars since the collapse of the Soviet Union and followed by years of uneasy calm. Those forces were accused by Chechens and foreign observers of murder, torture, and other human rights abuses.

In recent years, insurgency has flared in other North Caucasus regions, notably Dagestan and Ingushetia, and today's uprising in Chechnya will be of deep concern to Moscow.

In August a shoot-out between Mr Kadyrov's security service and "terrorists" left 19 people dead, including five civilians, in his home village of Tsentoroi.