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                   Nine Dead in Gunbattle in Chechen Capital

   by VOA News

   Russian officials say an early morning gunbattle in the Chechen capital
   Grozny has left at least three traffic police officers and six gunmen
   dead.

   Officials say militants traveling in three cars attacked police at a
   Grozny checkpoint early Thursday, before storming nearby buildings.

   The Moscow-based National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the militants
   occupied a multi-story publishing house, where six of them died in a
   fire.

   Chechnya's pro-Kremlin leader Ramzan Kadyrov said some of the militants
   were surrounded in a school building, adding the gunmen were "very
   heavily armed" and that their weapons included grenade launchers.

   The early morning violence came hours before President Vladimir Putin
   was to deliver his annual state of the nation address.

   In October, five policemen were killed in Grozny when they stopped a
   young suicide bomber from attacking a concert hall, shattering a period
   of relative calm in the restive North Caucasus region.

   Grozny has been the epicenter of two bloody wars in the past two
   decades between Russian forces and Chechen rebels seeking independence
   from Moscow.

   Chechnya has been ruled since 2005 by Kremlin loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/gunbattle-in-grozny-chechen-capital/2545423.html