THREE VOLGOGRAD REGION POLICEMEN WOUNDED IN CHECHNYA

Three police officers from the Volgograd region were wounded when their checkpoint outside the Chechen village of Chiri-Yurt on the bank of the Argun River came under fire at around midnight, a spokesman for the Chechen Interior Ministry told Interfax on Friday. The as yet unidentified attackers were armed with under-barrel grenade launchers and automatic weapons, the said. The assailants and policemen traded fire for about ten minutes. A man tried to detonate a grenade when police officers were searching his house in the village of Endrei in Dagestan\'s Khasavyurt district, a source in law enforcement told Interfax-AVN. The man was killed when policemen opened fire to stop him. A grenade, two 200-gram TNT blocks and 20 books promoting Wahhabism were found in the man\'s house. A man suspected of membership in militant leader Hattab\'s armed group between May and June 1997 was detained in the village of Osman- Yurt, in the Khasavyurt district. A resident of the village of Tsotsy-Yurt turned himself in to police in Chechnya\'s Kurchaloi district, admitting to having been a member of an armed group since October 1999 and participated in attacks against federal troops, the source said. (Interfax)