Relying on the AP, the Sydney Herald reports on yet another outbreak of violence in Chechnya. When these things happen in the U.S., the president's poll numbers drop. In Russia, of course, where failure is admired, they go up.

Unknown assailants attacked two vehicles in two troubled southern Russian provinces and blew up a third car, killing six people and injuring seven others, police officials said yesterday. A car carrying a group of fishermen in Chechnya's northeastern Shelkovsky district came under automatic gunfire yesterday, leaving four people killed and two seriously wounded, a spokesman for Chechnya's Interior Ministry said. The two or three assailants escaped, the spokesman said.
Investigators believe they attacked the fishermen because they were wearing camouflage, similar to the ones warn by law enforcement officers. Also yesterday, a minivan carrying police in Chechnya's central Shalinsky district exploded when it hit a remote-controlled roadside bomb, injuring three security officers and a traffic policeman, the spokesman said. In the neighbouring province of Ingushetia, another car was riddled with gun fire by unknown assailants as it was driving in the central Sunzhensky district, killing the driver and a military serviceman, and leaving another soldier wounded, the spokesman said. The attackers escaped, the spokesman said. Investigators believe the assault was part of a business dispute between local taxi drivers or was a rebel attack. Chechnya, a mainly Muslim region in southern Russia, has been wracked by separatist conflict for more than a decade, and the violence has spread increasingly to neighbouring North Caucasus regions in Russia.