Two dead, six injured in Chechnya blasts

Two people have been killed and six injured in two separate explosions in the southeast of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya in the past 24 hours, a police official said on Wednesday.

GROZNY, June 24 (RIA Novosti) - Two people have been killed and six injured in two separate explosions in the southeast of Russia's North Caucasus republic of Chechnya in the past 24 hours, a police official said on Wednesday.

Five police officers were wounded and taken to hospital after hitting an explosive device while conducting a search operation in the Achkhoi Martan district, the police source said.

In a separate incident in the same district, two people died when a minivan carrying three civilians exploded after hitting a roadside bomb, one passenger was critically injured, the official said.

The minivan was almost totally destroyed in the explosion, which left a deep crater at the site.

Security has improved in general in Chechnya since two brutal separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s, but attacks on police, troops and authorities remain common. Violence has intensified in nearby regions.

The president of Ingushetia was injured in an assassination attempt on Monday, when his motorcade was hit by a suicide car bomb. Yunus-bek Yevkurov received serious injuries and was airlifted to a Moscow hospital. The president's driver and his bodyguard died in the attack.

President Dmitry Medvedev described the killing as a terrorist attack and ordered tougher measures to end violence.

The attack took place after a top judge and a former deputy prime minister were shot dead in the republic in separate incidents earlier this month, and less than three weeks after Daghestan's interior minister was assassinated in Makhachkala.