GROZNY, 10 May 2004 — Chechnya’s pro-Kremlin President Akhmad Kadyrov was killed yesterday along with as many as 31 others in a bomb attack that dealt a grave blow to President Vladimir Putin’s effort to establish control over the republic.

The blast tore through a parade tribune at a packed stadium in the separatist capital as the republic’s top brass and spectators were watching a concert marking Victory Day celebrations commemorating the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany. Casualty figures were unclear late yesterday, as senior Russian and Chechen officials gave conflicting figures of between six and 40 dead in the attack.

A Chechen Interior Ministry spokesman told reporters that 32 people had died and 46 had been injured at the sports stadium. But senior Russian federal administrator Vladimir Yakovlev, whose district includes Chechnya, said six had died.

Russia’s top general in the region was also reported to have been seriously injured in the blast. Officials said his leg was amputated and he remained in grave condition in a Grozny hospital.

The blast came two days after Putin was sworn in to a second four-year term in office. The Russian leader angrily vowed to exact revenge on Chechnya’s separatist rebels even though there was no initial claim of responsibility for the attack.

It also came only minutes after Putin oversaw a grand military parade on Moscow’s Red Square and appeared timed exactly to coincide with the holiday in a dramatic demonstration that the Chechen conflict was far from over.

Putin confirmed that Kadyrov — who had been the target of several previous assassination attempts — had been killed.

“Kadyrov passed away on May 9 on the day of our national holiday, Victory Day,” Putin said while meeting with Kadyrov’s son Ramzan, who heads Chechen security forces. “This was a real, heroic man.”

Kadyrov, a one-time rebel, switched allegiance to Moscow at the outbreak of the second Chechen war in 1999 and was elected president of the Caucasus republic in elections last October.

Other reported casualties included Reuters journalist Adlan Khasanov and, according to Yakovlev, a Chechen official Hussein Issayev and an eight-year-old girl.

The explosion occurred while well-known Chechen artist Tamara Dadasheva was performing on stage, eyewitnesses said. The blast, which ripped off her leg, caused screams of horror and a rush for the exits.

Chechen police arrested and were interrogating five suspects but no formal charges have been filed, Russian news reports said.

The bomb — made of an explosives-filled 152 millimeter missile shell and apparently set off by remote control — appeared to have been planted just below the VIP section of the stadium, where Kadyrov and Baranov had been sitting.

Chechen Interior Ministry officials said the stadium, which had been completed only recently, had been searched meticulously before yesterday’s performance but that the bomb had been carefully hidden in a block of concrete. Two more unexploded bombs had been found in the stadium after the attack, they said.

The impact of the blast hit Kadyrov and the stadium’s front seats, where veterans and artists were sitting, one witness told AFP.

“During the explosion, Kadyrov was hit in the head, shoulders and legs,” Chechen Interior Ministry spokesman Tauz Dzhabrailov, who was himself injured in the attack, told AFP. He said Kadyrov had been seen wiping away blood from his forehead as he was carried away to hospital. The explosion was followed by a round of gunshots but it was not clear where they came from.

Separatist rebels have regularly used Chechen or Russian holidays as occasions to stage attacks against Russian targets but there was no initial claim of responsibility for the attack.

The attack was quickly condemned by the European Union and several governments, including Britain, France, Spain and Turkey. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana condemned the “terrorist attack,” while the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, underlined its “condemnation of all forms of terrorism regardless of its alleged motives and whoever its perpetrators”.

The explosion cast a shadow over Victory Day, one of the most celebrated events on the Russian calendar.

It has also shed doubt on Moscow’s claims that Chechnya was under control.

Putin has regularly refused to negotiate with rebels in mainly Muslim Chechnya and yesterday used his Red Square address to call on the world to unite against the threat of global “terrorism.”