50 soldiers killed in S Russia clashes

An opposition website in southern Russia said more than 50 soldiers were killed by militias yesterday in clashes that officials told Russian news agencies had killed only two soldiers.
The Ingushetia.org website cited a local official from the interior ministry giving the casualty figure, which would represent one of the worst losses for Russian forces since the end of major combat operations in Chechnya.
The website also quoted hospital sources and its own correspondent.
Russian officials in Moscow and in the province of Ingushetia where the clashes took place could not be reached for comment on the report.
Ingushetia, a mainly Muslim province neighbouring war-ravaged Chechnya, has been racked by a growing number of attacks against security forces that are frequently blamed on separatist rebels and Islamist fighters.
"A source from the Sunzhensky region interior ministry said around 50 soldiers were killed" in a single attack in which armoured personnel carriers and trucks were also destroyed, the Ingushetia.org website reported.
Five more soldiers were killed in two other attacks, the website said.
Interfax news agency quoted local prosecutor Pavel Belyakov saying two interior ministry soldiers were killed and nine others were injured in an attack on a military column that was carried out by rebel fighters.
Officials earlier said two soldiers were killed and five injured.
"The situation in Ingushetia is under control," Belyakov told Interfax, adding that Russian authorities had declared the area where the attack took place a "counter-terrorist operation zone."
"A search of the area is currently taking place, the bandits who carried out the attack on a defence ministry military column are being tracked," a spokesman for the armed forces in southern Russia, told Interfax.
Ingushetia.org said one attack occurred near the village of Galashki in which the 50 soldiers were killed, while another was on the road between the villages of Surkhakhi and Alkhasty where two more soldiers were killed.
There was also a third attack on a military column that had come as reinforcement to the road between Surkhakhi and Alkhasty in which at least three soldiers were killed, Ingushetia.org reported.
The website is highly critical of local authorities in Ingushetia. Its owner, Magomed Yevloyev, a local opposition leader, was shot dead in a mysterious incident after being taken into police custody in August.
Following Saturday's attacks, activists from the website said they were cancelling a demonstration to demand an objective inquiry into Yevloyev's death that had been planned for Sunday in Ingushetia's main city, Nazran.
In what appeared to be a separate incident, a car exploded in the village of Kantyshevo in Ingushetia, killing its driver in what reports quoted officials as saying could be the accidental detonation of a bomb intended for an attack.