30 people were killed today when a suicide bomber blew herself up at a crowded religious event in Chechnya.
The attack took place during a religious procession attended by 15,000 people at Iliskhan-Yurt in eastern Chechnya.
Up to 150 people were injured in the attack, some 45km east of the capital, Grozny.
The attack could have been targeting Chechnya's chief administrator, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was present but escaped unhurt.
Four of his bodyguards were killed when the bomber set off a belt of explosives strapped to her body as she tried to break through to a platform where the republic's pro-Moscow leadership was standing.
A Russian military spokesman, Colonel Ilya Shabalkin, accused the entourage of moderate Chechen rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov of a role in the attack.
