Roland Oliphant
Last week's suicide bombing outside a Grozny theatre seems to have been aimed at undermining Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's claims to have brought the insurgency under control. Desperate to convince Moscow that he can be a conciliator as well as a fighter, Kadyrov has opened talks with exiled rebel leader Akhmed Zakayev. But the insurgents in the mountains appear determined to keep fighting.
The suicide bomber detonated his bomb when suspicious policemen stopped him just outside the theatre, according to the Chechen authorities. The rebel website Kavkaz Centre claimed the explosion occurred "at some distance" from the theatre and suggested that the bomber's real target was Kadyrov himself, who was apparently in the area. The blast killed six people - four senior police officers and two builders - and injured nine others.
Despite Kadyrov's regular declarations of "victory" and the ending in April of the decade-long counter-terrorist regime, the ...
