Blasts shake Chechen capital ahead of elections

A police officer has died and fourteen people have been injured in a combined rocket and bomb blast in the Chechen capital Grozny.

“Fifteen people have suffered in total,” Interfax quoted a representative of the local investigation committee as saying. “One of them – the 36-year-old police aide Akhmad Tovgeriev – died. There were three civilians among those injured.”

The attackers initially fired at a police car using a rocket launcher, but missed and hit a cafe nearby.

When officers gathered near the site of the attack, a bomb was triggered.

The incident comes a day before the republic prepares to hold its first local elections since the collapse of the Soviet Union.