Police in Russia`s North Caucasus Republic of Chechnya killed three militants linked to a suicide bomber, who blew himself up on Friday in the capital, the Chechen interior minister said on Saturday.

Two police officers were killed and three injured in a bomb blast set off by a suicide bomber near the Chechen Interior Ministry in central Grozny on Friday.

The three militants died late Friday in a shootout with police who were conducting a special operation outside the capital Grozny, Ruslan Alkhanov said.

Alkhanov also said that another militant had been killed when special interior troops tried to stop his vehicle on Saturday morning some two kilometers from the capital.

Alkhanov said police discovered weapons and a 152mm shell in the dead man`s vehicle during a search.

Militant attacks have continued since the official lifting last month of the Kremlin`s decade-long anti-terrorist campaign in the North Caucasus republic.
sections: Accidents