Russian voters will elect a new president Sunday from five candidates, with incumbent Prime Minister Vladimir Putin heavily favored to win his third presidential term.

The following is a profile of Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, a meaningful challenger of Putin:

Zyuganov was born on June 26, 1944, in the village of Mymrino of Khotynets district in the Oryol region.

He graduated from the Oryol Pedagogical College in 1969 majoring in Mathematics and Physics, and studied as a part-time postgraduate at the Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow in 1978-1980.

In 1983, he served as a senior official of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in charge of ideology.

As the Soviet Communist Party fell apart in the early 1990s, Zyuganov helped form the Communist Party of Russian Federation. He was elected chairman of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party in February 1993.

Since January 1994, he has been repeatedly elected to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

This is the fourth time Zyuganov runs for presidency after three unsuccessful bids against Boris Yeltsin in 1996, Putin in 2000, and Dmitry Medvedev in 2008. He has always ranked a distant second place each time.

During his campaign for this year's election, Zyuganov vowed to nationalize Russia's natural resources and other industries like gas, oil, banking and transportation if elected.

He also advocated a multi-party coalition government to solve social injustice and called for restricting the influence of NATO.

He was projected by pollsters to win between 10 percent and 15 percent in the upcoming vote. Enditem

SANAA, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Three suicide bombers blew up in their car inside the Yemeni Republican Guard camp in southeast province of al-Bayda Saturday, but causing no casualties among the soldiers, a provincial security official told Xinhua.

"Three al-Qaida suicide bombers broke with their explosion-laden vehicle into al-Nasr Camp of the Republican Guard, but the soldiers fired back into the car, causing it to be exploded while it was moving in a free space near the bedrooms of the soldiers," the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Enditem

1st LD Writethru: 6 insurgents killed in Afghanistan: gov't

KABUL, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Six armed insurgents were killed and four others detained during joint operations in two Afghan provinces, the country's Interior Ministry said on Saturday.

"The Afghan National Police, Afghan army and International Coalition Forces launched three joint operations in Nangarhar and Badghis provinces killing six armed insurgents and detaining four others over the past 24 hours," the ministry said in a statement.

They also seized weapons besides defusing five Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in the above operations, it added.

"Two more insurgents were killed by their own IED while they attempted to plant it in the Badpakh District of eastern Laghman province Friday night," according to the statement.

Afghan forces and NATO-led coalition troops have intensified cleanup operations throughout the post-Taliban country recently. Over 220 insurgents have been killed and more than 600 others detained in the country since the beginning of this year, according to the Interior Ministry.

Taliban militants have yet to make comments.