Seven police killed near Chechnya in shooting mix-up

By Staff
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MOSCOW, Sep 13 (Reuters) Seven policemen were killed and 21 wounded today when two police units from separate parts of Russia's volatile North Caucasus fired on each other in what officials called a mistake, Russian news agencies said.

A motorcade of Chechnya's pro-Moscow special police was riddled with bullets as it was leaving neighbouring Ingushetia, heading home after catching a rebel fighter there, the agencies quoted a military source as saying.

The Chechen police returned fire after being shot at from a nearby post of Ingush road police, the source said.

Five Chechen policemen were killed, Chechen special police commander Artur Akhmadov told Interfax news agency. It quoted a North Caucasus security source as saying that two Ingush policemen had also died.

The security source said 10 Ingush and 11 Chechen policemen had been wounded.

''What happened in Ingushetia ... is a tragedy stemming from misunderstanding and shortcomings in the work of law enforcement bodies of Ingushetia and Chechnya,'' Interfax quoted Chechnya's pro-Moscow Prime Minister, Ramzan Kadyrov, as saying.

The shootout appeared to underline the chaotic situation in the North Caucasus, where Moscow has devolved many law enforcement duties to heavily-armed local militias who are only loosely under the control of federal officials.

HEATED PASSIONS Ingush President Murat Zyazikov said the shootout was ''a fatal, tragic mistake''. He said an investigation would be held.

''We are keeping the situation under control,'' Interfax quoted him as saying. ''What happened must in no way cast a reflection on the brotherly relations of the two republics.'' Chechnya's Kadyrov also said the incident ''should not sour the ties between the two republics, our two brotherly peoples''.

But Senator Issa Kostoyev, who represents Ingushetia in Russia's upper house of parliament said ''Chechnya's raids on Ingushetia were an outrageous affront for Ingushetia and its people''.

''There is one way out: to ask the whole people of Ingushetia to resist in any possible way -- with pitchforks, spades and rifles -- these policemen who come, show various identity cards and then snatch people,'' he told independent radio station Ekho Moskvy.

Officials in Ingushetia have repeatedly complained of forays by Chechen special police carrying out ''special operations'' on its territory without notifying local authorities.

The Chechen and Ingush people share the same cultural and historic heritage and were both evicted by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in cattle wagons in 1944.

But after the Soviet Union's demise in 1991 the Ingush chose to stay in Russia's fold, while Chechnya fought for more than a decade for independence before troops sent in by Moscow re-established control over the restive province.

REUTERS LL HS2155

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