AT LEAST 40 people were killed and more than 100 injured yesterday when suicide bombers smashed into a government building in Russia’s breakaway Muslim republic of Chechnya.

The attack came less than two months after Russian officials hailed victory in a referendum on Chechnya’s future, binding it to Russia in exchange for a measure of autonomy, as evidence that the rebels were now “irrelevant”.

The blast occurred early yesterday, when a lorry full of explosives went through the building’s concrete barriers. The explosion destroyed the building and eight houses near by. Russian television showed rescue workers and bloodied survivors around a 30ft crater among broken glass and twisted metal.

President Putin said: “This is intended to do one thing: to halt the normalisation process in Chechnya. We can’t allow this and we won’t allow this.” The attack took place in the northern town of Znamenskoye in an area ostensibly controlled by Russian troops. The building was also used as the headquarters for the local FSB, the successor to the KGB.

The last big rebel attack in Chechnya was in December, when suicide bombers blew up the local administration’s headquarters in Grozny, the capital, killing more than 70 people. But Chechnya is never quiet. Last week rebels blew up 19 military vehicles, killing ten soldiers and officials.

Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the administration, said: “We have many questions. Where did that lorry come from? How did it manage to pass so many posts?”

In the past decade Chechnya has seen some of the bloodiest fighting in Europe since the Second World War. Boris Yeltsin’s attempt to crush the rebels ended in humiliating defeat for Russian forces in 1996. Chechnya then had three years of de facto independence before Mr Putin launched a second campaign after a series of bombings in Moscow that were blamed on the rebels.

Rights groups say that more than 100,000 civilians have been killed in Chechnya in the two campaigns and that hundreds of young men disappear each year. Tens of thousands of people have fled the violence, with many living in large tent cities in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia.

Although opinion polls suggest that most Russians favour peace talks, the Government says that it will not negotiate with “terrorists”. Officials say that the death toll among Russian soldiers, which is estimated at more than 7,000, is a price worth paying to protect Russia’s territorial integrity.

Mr Putin’s peace plan envisages presidential elections for Chechnya later this year. Sceptics say that the March referendum was rigged — 96 per cent voted in favour — and that the elections will be conducted in the same way.

No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Russian officials blamed Aslan Mask-hadov, the elected Chechen president before the 1999 invasion. He denied involvement.

Last year, Chechen militants took more than 700 hostages in a Moscow theatre. Almost 130 hostages and all the rebels died after security forces stormed the building using a mystery anaesthetic gas.

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