MOSCOW — Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, the former Islamic cleric who was the Kremlin's hope for ending nearly a decade of war in his breakaway republic, was assassinated Sunday in a bomb blast that ripped through a crowded military parade in the Chechen capital of Grozny.
The explosion killed Kadyrov almost instantly and threw into question the only plan Russia has mustered to quell the violent rebellion. At least six other people were killed, including state council leader Khusayn Isayev -- the third most powerful politician in Chechnya -- and a Reuters journalist covering the event. Lt. Gen. Valery Baranov, Russia's top military commander in the region, was among 50 people injured by the blast.
Authorities said a 152-millimeter artillery shell was placed directly beneath the seating area where Kadyrov and other dignitaries sat for Victory Day, which commemorates the Nazi defeat in World War II. The area had been swept for hazards by a six-member security team shortly before the celebration.
"The security at the stadium was very serious," Chechen Information Minister Taus Dzhabrailov, who received minor injuries in the blast, said in a telephone interview from Grozny. "The security service and Kadyrov's personal guards were taking care of that. Because of the military parade, there were a lot of armed people there.
"Specialists are telling us that the shells were hidden in the concrete a long time ago," Dzhabrailov said.
A second artillery shell planted nearby apparently failed to detonate, and authorities said a third explosive device, fashioned out of a bottle, appeared to blow up just after the initial explosion.
Television pictures showed how the VIP section of the stands at the open-air stadium turned into a mass of broken metal shards and rubble, as panicked attendees shrieked and ran for cover. Agence France-Presse reported that a well-known singer who had been performing at the time of the blast, Tamara Dadacheva, lost her leg in the explosion.
Kadyrov, who was sitting in the top row of the stands, slumped forward with blood gushing from his head, the agency reported. Before Sunday's attack, Kadyrov had survived more than a dozen assassination attempts.
Also listed among the dead were a 33-year-old Reuters news photographer, Adlan Khasanov, two of Kadyrov's guards, and an 8-year-old girl. The identity of the seventh victim was not clear, and some reports listed a higher death toll.
No one claimed responsibility for the blast, but a spokesman for the Chechen rebels' so-called government-in-exile, deputy foreign minister Usman Ferzauli, said Kadyrov was "a potential target, a military target" in the ongoing war, because of his close cooperation with the Russian government.
"I think of him as a traitor, and nothing more than someone who is terrorizing his own people," Ferzauli said in a telephone interview. "He is a potential target for the Chechen Liberation Army, and that is what happened today. He died. He found what he was looking for."
Five unidentified suspects, all under the age of 30, were arrested in Grozny, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Dzhabrailov blamed Chechen rebels for the attack, singling out Islamist rebel leader Shamil Basayev, who has admitted planning many attacks on Russian targets.
"I think today's explosion is Basayev's terrorists' handiwork," he said, noting that in a recent military operation, leaflets calling for the killing of Kadyrov and his son were found in the pockets of dead rebels.
In a communique last month published by the Chechen news agency Kavkaz, Basayev promised to cut off Kadyrov's head and place it at the feet of Aslan Maskhadov, elected president by the Chechens in 1997 and now directing the rebels' military from underground.
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin had counted on Kadyrov and his tough, often brutal security forces to impose order and allow Russian forces to gradually withdraw and declare an end to the war.
Putin looked grim Sunday as he stood in Moscow at the side of Kadyrov's son, Ramzan, who heads a Chechen presidential security force believed to be responsible for dozens of kidnappings and detentions of civilians. The younger Kadyrov appeared to be fighting back tears.
"Justice will take the upper hand, and retribution is inevitable," Putin said. Akhmad Kadyrov, he added, "was a real hero. All of his work vividly demonstrated that there is nothing in common between bandits, terrorists and the rest of the [Chechen] people."
Analysts said Chechnya's future remained in doubt because Russia's only plan for the troubled republic relied on Kadyrov.
"I think that civil war in Chechnya is inevitable, in any case," said Anna Politkovskaya, who has covered the war in Chechnya for the Moscow newspaper Novaya Gazeta. "Not a single person is controlling anything in Chechnya."
