30 Held in Fatal Chechnya Blast, General Says

Thirty people have been detained for suspected complicity in the bomb attack on a military barracks that killed more than two dozen Russian soldiers, the commander of Russian forces in Chechnya said Saturday.

Col. Gen. Gennady Troshev told NTV television news that “two of them have already confessed to taking part in the crime.”

One of the two men transported explosives to Argun, where the July 2 blast killed at least 26 servicemen. The other confessed to recruiting the driver of the truck that exploded outside a military barracks on the outskirts of the town, Troshev said.

The Argun bombing was one of five coordinated attacks that killed at least 33 Russian soldiers and wounded 84.

After the Argun blast and a series of other attacks the same day, Russia stepped up its aerial strikes against rebel bases in Chechnya’s southern mountains and ordered troops to shoot at any vehicles violating a 9 p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew in the republic.

The attacks demonstrated the rebels’ determination to resist and undermined Russian claims to control the situation in the separatist republic.

Rebels continued their campaign of nightly hit-and-run attacks on Russian facilities, firing on five Russian checkpoints and outposts overnight, the military command said Saturday. No casualties were reported.

Chechen residents traveling to the neighboring republic of Dagestan through the village of Gerzel reported Saturday that Russian warplanes have been bombing suspected rebel hide-outs in the mountainous southern Vedeno and Shali regions and in the Argun gorge.

They said that the Russian planes were striking targets in rural areas and forests where the bases are believed to be located.

Russian forces have been struggling to reestablish Moscow’s control over the region in a military operation that began 10 months ago. The troops have taken control of most of Chechnya but are vulnerable to ambushes and truck bombings.

President Vladimir V. Putin said Saturday in his state-of-the-union address that Chechnya was an “extreme example” of the government’s failure to assert its authority over Russia’s regions.