Piest, a correspondent for the German newsmagazine Stern, was
killed in a suicide attack by a Chechen rebel in the village of
Chervlyonna, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of the Chechen
capital, Grozny. The rebel was firing his submachine gun as he drove a
small diesel locomotive at high speed toward an empty Russian troop
train parked on the track. Piest was fatally hit by three bullets. Rossiskaya Gazeta correspondent Vladimir Sorokin was wounded in the attack. The gunman died when the locomotive collided with the military train.