Gudermes is the hometown of Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's powerful Moscow-backed prime minister.
RFE/RL's Russian Service also reports that two Russian servicemen and one Chechen militant were killed today in a separate shooting in Chechnya's mountainous Shatoi region.
(with material from agency reports)
The Chechnya Conflict
The aftermath of a December 2002 Chechen resistance attack on the main government building in Grozny (epa)