Chechen police kill four teenage attackers

Russian investigators released this photo of a car used by two assailants

Police have shot dead four teenagers who launched three attacks in and around the Chechen capital Grozny, say officials in the Russian republic.

A fifth teenager detonated a bomb he was carrying in a rucksack, but survived. He had approached a police post in Mesker-Yurt, east of Grozny.

No policemen died. In the past decade Chechnya has seen much jihadist unrest.

The Islamic State group says its militants carried out the attacks. The claim has not been verified.

The Chechen Information Minister, Dzhambulat Umarov, said the youngest attacker was 11 and the oldest 17.

Two were armed with knives and attacked a police station in Shali, 25km (15 miles) southeast of Grozny, Chechen police said. Both were shot dead and two policemen were hurt in that attack.

On the outskirts of Grozny a car rammed a traffic police checkpoint and a car chase ensued. Police shot the two occupants dead during that chase. No civilians were hurt in any of the attacks.

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In a post on Telegram the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, condemned the teenagers who, he alleged, had tried to disrupt Muslim Chechens' celebrations of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Tuesday.

The last major terror attack in Chechnya was in December 2014, when gunmen seized a publishing house and a school in Grozny. In a fierce gun battle 14 Chechen police died as well as 11 of the gunmen. The attack was claimed by an Islamist group.

The mainly Muslim republic was devastated by two wars between Russian troops and Chechen separatist rebels, in the period 1994-2007. Ramzan Kadyrov, fiercely loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has ruthlessly suppressed opposition.