MOSCOW - Russian security agents discovered a car wired with explosives near the headquarters of the Kremlin-backed Chechen administration, less than two weeks after the building was reopened following a truck-bombing, a Russian official said Monday.

The discovery of the car bomb in the Chechen capital Grozny on Sunday underlined the violence and disorder that afflict the city despite a massive Russian military presence.

Elsewhere in the war-ravaged region, six Russian soldiers and six rebels died in a shootout in the mountain hamlet of Dyshne-Vedeno that began when rebels attacked a military patrol, said Col. Ilya Shabalkin, a spokesman for the military in Chechnya.

Shabalkin told Russian news media that agents of the Federal Security Service had found an automobile containing a bomb about 70 meters (220 feet) outside the perimeter of the administration complex. The bomb, consisting of about 120 kilograms (260 pounds) of plastic explosive, was neutralized, he said.

The Chechen administration complex was heavily damaged in December when suicide attackers drove two truck bombs through the security cordons and detonated them, killing 72 people. Chechnya's Moscow-appointed acting president, Akhmad Kadyrov, hailed the building's July 10 reopening as a sign of determination to bring stability to the region.

Meanwhile, an envoy of Chechen rebel President Aslan Maskhadov said he discussed prospects for peace in Chechnya with State Department and Pentagon officials, congressmen and senators during a five-day trip to Washington last week.

Salambek Maigov said he traveled to Washington at the invitation of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, co-chaired by former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Maskhadov appointed Maigov this year to kick-start negotiations with Russian officials. However, the Kremlin has rejected the idea of talks with Maskhadov, calling him a terrorist.

"The very fact that I was received within the walls of the Pentagon" proves that U.S. officials do not believe Maskhadov's government is a terrorist group, Maigov told The Associated Press by telephone from London, where he is holding more meetings.

Maigov said he told U.S. officials that Maskhadov supported the anti-terrorist coalition and that recent suicide bombings in Moscow were the work of "a very small, marginal group." He said he appealed to the United States "to act as a political guarantor" of a peace process.

The Kremlin has called an Oct. 5 election for the Chechen presidency - with Maskhadov excluded from the ballot - which it hopes will serve as a political solution and help end the daily attacks on Russian forces. Maigov said the vote would solve nothing.

Russian forces pulled out of Chechnya in 1996 after insurgents fought them to a standstill in a 20-month war, leaving the republic de facto independent, but swept in again in 1999. The resumption of fighting followed incursions by Chechnya-based rebels into neighboring Dagestan and the deaths of some 300 people in apartment-building explosions that officials blamed on the separatists.