Chechnya's leader said today he would run for president in elections key to the Kremlin's peace plan for the province, but five Russian soldiers were killed as rebels pursued their campaign against Moscow.
Acting President Mr Akhmad Kadyrov was appointed by Moscow in 2000 after Russian troops poured back into the province, chasing out separatist leader Mr Aslan Maskhadov to end three years of de facto independence.
"I will stand as an independent candidate," Mr Kadyrov, a former rebel sympathiser and religious leader, said in a statement from his press office.
"I will not represent any party, because I do not want to put myself under obligation to any political movement."
October's poll is the next stage in Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin's plan to stamp out a decade-old insurgency in the mainly Muslim southern province.
But rebels, who have tried to kill Mr Kadyrov so many times the Kremlin has lost count, do not recognise the election. An explosion which killed five Russian soldiers on Tuesday night in Ingushetia on Chechnya's western border showed the violence was far from over.