Three police killed in Russia's Ingushetia-police

NAZRAN, Russia, Aug 31 (Reuters) Three police were killed and two injured today in a blast in Nazran, the capital of Russia's southern province of Ingushetia which borders Chechnya, an Ingushi interior ministry spokesman said.

There were conflicting accounts of what happened.

The ministry spokesman said a police jeep collided with a Russian-made Lada car, which ran on gas, near the town's cultural centre.

''This was a car accident,'' he said. ''The Lada's gas canister exploded after the collision with the jeep. Three people were killed, two others were injured.'' The spokesman said ammunition in the police jeep could have detonated, making the explosion more powerful.

However, Itar-Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies gave a different account sourced to an unnamed official in ''Ingushetia's law-enforcement bodies''.

The source told the agencies a police patrol in a jeep was dispatched to check reports that a Lada car packed with explosives was parked next to the cultural centre.

''The explosion occurred when they approached the Lada,'' the source said.

The interior ministry press office denied this report.

Policemen in the cordon surrounding the scene told Reuters that virtually nothing was left of the Lada after the explosion.

They said they saw dead bodies in police uniforms.

A series of recent attacks against officials and police, blamed on Islamist rebels, has heightened security fears in Ingushetia. Earlier this month 2,500 troops were sent to the region to support local security forces.

REUTERS RS KP2232