A Russian officer has been found dead with his throat slashed in a northern federally-controlled sector of the separatist Chechen republic, ITAR-TASS reported Sunday citing official sources.
The soldier, whose identity was not revealed, was discovered in the Kalinovskaya settlement, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of the shelled-out capital Grozny.
The region was one of the first to be taken under full Russian control when federal forces stormed into the North Caucasus republic in a self-declared anti-terrorist operation on October 1, 1999.
The Chechen rebels have since engaged Russian troops in a fierce guerrilla war that sees dozens of weekly casualties, many of them going unreported by the state media -- MOSCOW (AFP)
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