Chechnya's new leader has vowed to rebuild the shattered region and crush separatists after winning an election condemned by rights groups.
Mr Alu Alkhanov, the former Chechnya interior minister who was handpicked for the job by Russian President Vladimir Putin, won 73.48 per cent of Sunday's vote, according to preliminary results from the election commission.
Mr Alkhanov (47) said his administration would focus on reviving Chechnya's economy, shattered by war, and creating 150,000 new jobs in the next five years.
"We are one team and together we will solve all pressing problems . . . come here at the end of 2005 and you will see that a lot is fresh, a lot is new," Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying at his first news conference as president.
"We will not forget about the fighters. They have, and still are forming criminal gangs that must be fought until they are wiped out," he said.
The weekend poll took place against a backdrop of heavy fighting in Chechnya and two near-simultaneous plane crashes last week that killed 90 people elsewhere in Russia.
The International Helsinki Federation (IHF) rights group said the election had been neither free nor fair. The United States said the election "did not meet international standards for a democratic election".