Alu Alkhanov

In a grisly reminder of the threat from rebels who have waged a decade-long conflict with Moscow, a man carrying a package filled with explosives blew himself up near a polling station in Grozny when apprehended by police.

Electoral commission chief Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov said Interior Minister Alu Alkhanov got more than 50 percent of the vote Aug. 29 and was assured of being elected president of the rebel southern Russian republic.

The poll, which was forced on the republic by the killing four months ago of President Akhmad Kadyrov in an explosion, came a week after Chechen rebels killed up to 50 people in a raid in Grozny.

But election officials insisted that the vote had passed smoothly despite the death of the blast suspect, a 25-year-old said by local officials to be a member of an "illegal armed group," which underlined the lurking threat of unrest.

The Japan Times Weekly: Sept. 4, 2004
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