MOSCOW - Russian security forces in Chechnya said Thursday they had prevented a suicide truck bombing involving 1.2 tonnes of explosives.
"Security forces were able to capture the two people in charge of the vehicle," the Russian military's principal spokesman in Chechnya, General Ilya Shabalkin, said on Russian television.
"The vehicle was fully prepared for an explosion. All you had to do was put a suicide bomber behind the wheel and switch on the detonator," Interfax news agency quoted Shabalkin as saying.
There was no immediate independent confirmation of the claim.
According to Shabalkin, the Kamaz truck was stopped in the area of the capital Grozny.
The "terrorist act" was being planned by top Chechen guerrilla leaders, including Shamil Basayev, Doku Umarov and Abdul-Khalim Saidulayev -- who took over as the nominal head of independence fighters after the recent killing by Russian forces of the Chechen rebel president Aslan Maskhadov -- Shabalkin said.
The report came as Russia mounted a massive security clampdown ahead of May 9 festivities commemorating the end of World War II and due to be attended by about 60 world leaders.
Last year, a bomb attack killed Moscow's handpicked leader in Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, as he attended a May 9 parade in Grozny.
In a separate report, the FSB secret police announced that security forces had uncovered plans by rebels to use poison, including cyanide, as weapons.
Russian forces have been fighting in Chechnya since 1999 in a war estimated to have killed tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians. An earlier war to crush an independence movement in 1994-96 ended in defeat for the Russian army.
Despite repeated claims in Moscow to have ended the current conflict, guerrilla attacks on the approximately 80,000-strong military force and terrorist incidents take an almost daily toll.
05/05/2005 09:42 GMT