NINE PEOPLE have died following three suicide bomb attacks in the Chechen capital Grozny yesterday. Another 22 people were injured.

Crowds were celebrating the Eid festival, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in the city centre when the bombs struck.

The first bomb went off after police stopped one of the bombers to check their ID, and two others followed in the same area. At least six police officers were killed. Gunfire was reported to have followed one of the explosions.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-supported Chechen leader, described the bombers as “zombified bandits” and the “devil incarnate”, according to the Guardian. He criticised the timing of the attacks, coming during the Eid celebrations, and promised a strong response.

Recent attacks in the restive north Caucasus region have targeted police and security forces. Earlier this year Chechen militant Doku Umarov, one of Russia’s most wanted men, claimed responsibility for the January bomb attack on Domodedovo airport outside Moscow in which 35 people were killed.

- Additional reporting by the AP