During the height of the Second Chechen War (1999-2002), the rebels used land mines and remote- or command-detonated explosives with telling effect and they remain one of the rebels' most potent weapons against Russian troops, even though many of the rebels' better sappers have been killed or captured and their caches of explosives discovered over the last year.
The rebels usually base their bombs on a 95 lb artillery shell that has 16.5 lbs of explosive filler, boosted whenever possible with more explosives. On July 31st, sappers spotted and defused a radio-controlled homemade explosive device that was made from two 82 mm mortar shells and a 152 mm artillery shell, near the road leading to Kerla-Engenoi. A plastic bag filled with about seven pounds of nails was attached to the device, to enhance the damage caused by its explosion. The bomb's blast would have killed a large number of people in a nearby cafe.
If the rebels find a good spot for attacks, chances are they'll keep coming back to that same spot. In Grozny's Leninsky district, sapper teams and local police defused a powerful home-made explosive device made from an artillery shell filled with TNT and pieces of metal on the morning of the 28th. This device was planted near the junction of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky Streets at the same spot where another device was detonated a month ago, injuring several Chechen Interior Ministry officials.
Russian sappers are kept busy. During the week prior, 11 trucks and armored vehicles were blown up in Chechnya while more than 120 explosive devices (including nine landmines) were defused. - Adam Geibel
