MOSCOW -- Seven Russian policemen and a village chief died in a fresh wave of attacks by Islamic rebel forces in the north Caucasus Republic of Chechnya, news agencies in Moscow reported Sunday.

In eleven separate raids rebels shot dead the Chechen administrator of Pobedinskoye by the regional capital Grozny during the night, Russian military officials told Interfax as quoted by DPA.

His death is the latest in a string of assassinations of village heads targeted by the separatist rebels in retaliation for cooperating with the Russians.

A patrol jeep was blown up Saturday by a bomb inside Grozny, killing a major and injuring four other officers of the Omon paramilitary police.

Six policemen also died and nine more were injured in an earlier attack in the city when the rebels set off a mine beneath an armored car.

At least 11 more Russians were wounded when rebels ambushed a column of military vehicles near Vedeno in the southern highland of the republic. Three rebels died in an exhange of fire, Russian sources said.

More than 3,000 Russian soldiers and policemen have died in the campaign against Chechen rebel forces in the past two years.