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Update: 1 policeman killed, 4 wounded in Chechnya roadside bombing

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MOSCOW, November 3 (RIA Novosti) - One police officer was killed and four wounded early Friday in a road bridge bombing in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya in Russia's North Caucasus, a top regional commander said.

Earlier reports by prosecutors said one person was killed and three wounded when a bomb, made from a 155-mm artillery shell and planted on a bridge over the Sunzha river, detonated as a truck carrying the officers passed by.

The commander of Russia's Joint Forces in the North Caucasus, Colonel-General Yevgeny Baryayev, said the number of fatalities could have been much higher because the explosion occurred some 100 meters from a checkpoint, but that luckily no civilians were nearby at the time.

Chechnya's Prosecutor General Valery Kuznetsov said earlier in the day the policemen were part of an Interior Ministry Special Operations unit on temporary duty in Chechnya, from the city of Orel in West Russia.

The prosecutor said investigators are searching for the attackers, and have several suspects in mind.

Although authorities have announced that the active phase of the counterterrorism operation in the North Caucasus is over, violence continues to affect the region.

A partial amnesty announced July 15 following the killing of the region's number one terrorist Shamil Basayev promised militants not involved in major atrocities leniency.

A law granting amnesty to militants and servicemen guilty of offenses during the North Caucasus antiterrorism campaign came into force in late September.

More than 300 militants have accepted the surrender offer since its announcement, mainly in Chechnya, according to Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and the National Antiterrorism Committee.

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