A top pro-Moscow official in eastern Chechnya escaped unscathed Monday after her car hit a remote-controlled landmine in the war-torn separatist republic, ITAR-TASS reported.
Malika Gezimieva's bodyguard and her driver were injured in the assassination attempt, the latest in a spate of attacks by pro-independence rebels targeting Chechen officials sympathetic to Russian rule.
"They won't succeed in killing me so it's not worth them even trying," Gezimieva, regional head of the Gudermes district, was quoted as saying by the news agency after the incident.
The landmine exploded near a school where the republic's civilian administrator Akhmad Kadyrov was to hold a meeting, in the second city Gudermes which is the seat of the pro-Moscow government.
Kadyrov, appointed by Moscow in June to run the rebellious republic, is branded a traitor by the Chechen guerrilla leadership, which has put a price on his head -- MOSCOW (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
