At least 15 people were killed and another 24 injured yesterday when an armoured police carrier was blown up by rebels in Russia's Chechnya, officials said.

ITAR-TASS news agency quoted local Prime Minister Sergei Abramov as saying the dead included 11 policeman and three civilians. A member of the FSB state security service also died.

Chechen regional government officials said the attack took place in the village of Znamenskoye, about 60 kilometres northwest of the regional capital, Grozny.

Znamenskoye, like most of Chechnya's low-lying north, has been largely untouched by the war that has raged in the region for a decade, although a suicide bombing killed 59 people in the village in 2003.

"Today a terrorist act was committed... and as a result people have been killed, people have been injured and people have been seriously injured," Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said in a televized statement.

"Overall, more than 35 people have been harmed. They have been given first aid, and sent to the nearest hospitals."

Government troops control most of the territory and in March killed separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, but the violence is spreading beyond Chechnya's borders to neighbouring regions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin blames the war on international terrorists seeking to destabilize Russia, and responded to the blast by demanding quicker moves to close weak spots on the border with the ex-Soviet states of the South Caucasus.

Pro-Moscow officials were quoted by local agencies as blaming the attack on forces loyal to warlord Shamil Basayev, whom Moscow links to international terrorist groups and is called Russia's most wanted man.

"The tragic events in the Nadterechny region (of Chechnya) show that all we are planning must be done, and must be done quickly," said Putin at a government meeting, referring to plans to both toughen security and boost the economy to try and undermine the rebels' support base.

He has long refused to contemplate a negotiated end to the Chechen war, but his pledges to destroy the rebels are yet to bring an end to the fighting.

(China Daily July 20, 2005)