Chechen Interior Ministry said the militants had opened fire with automatic weapons and thrown grenades at police officers.
Vladmir Putin(Reuters)
Police shot dead eight militants
in Chechnya in southern Russia around midnight on Saturday after the
men, travelling in two cars, opened fire when asked to stop at a
checkpoint, the Interfax news agency reported on Sunday.
Moscow
has fought two wars with separatists in Chechnya since the 1991 Soviet
collapse and still faces a low-level insurgency in the mainly Muslim
region in Russia's volatile North Caucasus area.
Citing
the Chechen Interior Ministry, Interfax said the militants had opened
fire with automatic weapons and thrown grenades at police officers who
tried to stop them.
The agency quoted a law
enforcement source as saying the gang had planned to carry out a series
of attacks in Chechnya, which is ruled with an iron fist by Ramzan
Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed president.
The armed
group was led by Ali Demilkhanov, who was on a federal wanted list,
Interfax reported. It said authorities had received advance intelligence
about the militants and had deployed 200 men to try to intercept them.
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