Mass kidnapping as wave of attacks hits S Russia

More than 10 people have been kidnapped in the volatile province of Ingushetia in southern Russia, a local official said yesterday, as guerrilla attacks by rebels in the region intensify.
"Ten to 15 people were kidnapped last night in a gambling arcade by armed men in masks. They were driven away in their own cars," a local government spokesman told reporters, without giving further details about the incident.
Earlier RIA Novosti news agency quoted a local Interior Ministry official as saying that the kidnapping happened in the town of Ordzhonikidzevskaya and that four police officers were among those taken.
In other apparently unrelated attacks across Russia's restive North Caucasus region, a soldier and the wife of a local official were killed, while at least 14 Russian officers were injured, Russian news agencies reported Friday.
Valentina Miroshnichenko, wife of the deputy mayor of Ordzhonikidzevskaya, was gunned down in the street by unidentified attackers in a Lada car and "died on her way to hospital," an Interior Ministry official said, Interfax reported.
The soldier died when the military vehicle he was riding in was hit Thursday by a roadside bomb in Chechnya, which has been ravaged by wars between Russian forces and separatist rebels since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"A soldier died from his injuries. Two have been hospitalised," an Interior Ministry official was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Eight police officers were injured in other attacks in Chechnya, including one in which a police vehicle came under grenade fire, Interfax reported.
Human rights groups say violence by Islamist fighters and separatist rebels in this mostly Muslim part of southern Russia has reached unprecedented levels since the end of major combat operations in Chechnya several years ago.
In Dagestan, another high-risk Russian province next to Chechnya, four police officers were injured by a bomb blast on Thursday in the city of Khasavyurt, RIA Novosti news agency reported, quoting local police.