World briefs 07/28/03

Chechen suicide bombing wounds bystanderROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia -- A female suicide bomber blew herself up Sunday near a base of a security force commanded by a son of Chechnya's Kremlin-appointed administration chief, wounding a woman who was nearby, officials said.

The attack, which occurred southeast of the provincial capital of Grozny, appeared aimed at the administration chief Akhmad Kadyrov's son, Ramzan, Chechnya's Emergency Situations Minister Ruslan Avtayev said. He said one woman was lightly wounded in the attack.

The attacker approached a building where Ramzan Kadyrov was reviewing members of the force, and guards thought she looked suspicious. "They asked her to halt, and at that moment the explosion rang out," Samail Saraliyev, a spokesman for Akhmad Kadyrov, said on NTV television.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack.

The bomber was about 20 years old, the Interfax news agency reported, citing unidentified sources in the regional Interior Ministry. Authorities were searching for another woman after hearing reports that a second bomber had been planning an attack on the younger Kadyrov, according to Interfax.

Female suicide bombers have carried out several attacks in Chechnya and Moscow in recent months.

Alleged al-Qaida-linked group members arrested

SAN'A, Yemen -- Yemeni security forces arrested four alleged members of an al-Qaida-linked militant group suspected in an attack on a military medical convoy, an official said Sunday.

The detainees allegedly belong to the outlawed Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, a group formed by Arab and Yemeni fighters who fought to oust the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in 1989.

Yemeni authorities blame the group for the June 21 attack on the convoy in southern Yemen that wounded seven soldiers.

The security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said security forces detained the four men during the past week in the city of Abyan, bringing to 32 the number of militants arrested since an offensive was launched on the group's mountain hideout near Hatat, some 280 miles south of the capital, San'a.

The group's leader and eight other members were killed in the army raid and subsequent clashes with government soldiers.

Six killed in artillery fire along Kashmir border

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan -- Troops from India and Pakistan traded artillery and mortar fire along the Kashmir border Sunday, killing six Pakistani civilians.

The dead from the skirmish, which is not uncommon in the disputed border region, included two brothers, ages 8 and 10. Another 15 people were wounded on Pakistan's side, said police Superintendent Raja Abdul Razzaq.

There were no immediate reports of casualties on the Indian side.

The young brothers died of shrapnel wounds when an artillery shell exploded near their home in Hajira, 100 miles south of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.

21 trapped Chinese miners confirmed dead

BEIJING -- All 21 coal miners who were trapped by a flood in a coal mine in central China two weeks ago have been confirmed dead, the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday.

The final three bodies were found Saturday afternoon in the Dongfeng Coal Mine in Henan province, Xinhua said. It said rescuers failed to find anyone alive due to "difficult conditions underground."

Six managers of the mine have been detained on charges of trying to conceal the July 13 disaster, according to earlier reports.

State media have said investigators believe the mine flooded when a wall separating it from a neighboring flooded mine collapsed.

-- From wire reports