VLADIKAVKAZ, Sept 7: Seven Russian soldiers were killed and another 15 servicemen and police wounded in clashes with rebels throughout Chechnya, including the heavily militarized capital, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen administration said on Sunday.

The report of the deaths in the previous 24-hour period underlined the rebels’ capacity to inflict casualties on Russian forces despite being far outnumbered and more lightly equipped.

Russian warplanes and artillery launch attacks daily on suspected rebel positions, but the insurgents respond with hit-and-run attacks, ambushes and landmines and remote-detonated explosives.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said five of the soldiers were killed when Russian outposts came under rebel fire. The other two were killed by mines.

Two police were wounded and a rebel was killed in a clash in a neighbourhood of the capital Grozny, where rebel infiltration is strong despite the massive Russian military presence there.—AP