Police blamed over Russia blast

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Russia has begun a security shake-up in the southern republic of Ingushetia after a suicide bombing killed 20 people at a police station there.

A new interior minister - Viktor Zhirnov - has been appointed in Ingushetia, which has seen a spate of attacks by militants in recent months.

The blast in the city of Nazran on Monday left a 4m-wide (13ft) crater.

Nearby homes were also badly damaged. The attack injured more than 138 people, including children.

Ingush officials say the force of the blast was equivalent to about 400kg of TNT.

It is not yet clear whether one suicide bomber or two carried out the attack.

<a class="" href="/2/hi/in_pictures/8205131.stm">In pictures: Russian bomb attack</a>

Russia has announced "additional measures" to beef up security in Ingushetia, Itar-Tass news agency reports.

Commenting on the bombing, Russia's Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said: "When information was already known and when appropriate preventive measures should already have been taken [the police] failed to work."

A Gazel truck packed with explosives was rammed into the gates of the police compound as officers were reporting for inspection, an Ingush government spokesman said. Police fired shots at the truck, but failed to stop it.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sacked the region's interior minister, Ruslan Meiriyev, saying the attack had been preventable.

"This act of terror could have been averted," said Mr Medvedev. "The police must protect the people and the police must also be able to defend themselves."

He said the truck had been reported to police earlier as stolen.

Ingush Prime Minister Rashid Gaysanov said: "Our police are weak, they can protect neither themselves nor the republic's inhabitants."

Some seriously injured people have been airlifted to hospitals in Moscow.

Escalating clashes

Monday's bomb attack was the deadliest strike in Ingushetia since 2004, when some 90 people were killed when hundreds of gunmen staged a raid on the centre of Nazran.

ANALYSIS Sarah Rainsford, BBC News This attack is part of a recent surge in violence in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region of Russia. The large-scale separatist conflict that ravaged Chechnya has now ended after 15 years. In April, the Russian president declared Chechnya to be stable enough to ease security restrictions, and lower the number of Russian troops.

But the insurgency in the Caucasus has gradually changed form into an Islamist uprising, and spread beyond Chechnya's borders. Militants have targeted government officials and the security forces in particular, with a combination of deadly gun battles and suicide attacks.

President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was appointed by the Kremlin to head the autonomous republic of Ingushetia - and arrived vowing to end the violence and combat serious corruption. He's still recovering from an attempt on his life.

Much of the violence in Ingushetia has echoed the continuing unrest in neighbouring Chechnya, with escalating clashes in the past year between pro-Russian security forces and armed militants.

Chechnya was devastated by two wars between Russian troops and separatist Islamist militants in the 1990s. Sporadic clashes continue there between militants and Russian-backed Chechen security forces.

Violence has also spilled over into Dagestan - Chechnya's neighbour to the east.

On Tuesday a bomb blast targeted two police jeeps in Dagestan's capital Makhachkala, killing one policeman and wounding six, Itar-Tass reported.

Human rights activists and opposition politicians in Ingushetia told the BBC last year that the republic was now in a situation of "civil war".

In the most high-profile recent attack, Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was severely wounded when a suicide bomber attacked his motorcade in June. He is still recuperating at a health centre.

In a statement, he blamed Monday's attack on militants angered by recent security operations along the border with Chechnya.

"It was an attempt to destabilise the situation and sow panic," he said.

Less than a week ago, Ingushetia's construction minister was shot dead by masked gunmen.