MAKHACHKALA, July 24 (RIA Novosti) - Two suspected militants have been killed in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.
“The driver and the passenger of a car that police officers stopped for a check opened fire near the town of Makhachkala,” the spokesman said Tuesday.
“The attackers were killed by return fire,” he said. “Three policemen were wounded.”
According to preliminary data, the attackers were members of a Dagestani gang, both born in 1991, the Russian National Anti-Terrorism Committee reported Tuesday.
An investigation is underway.
The Islamist insurgency, once confined largely to the republic of Chechnya, has spread across the North Caucasus in recent years. Attacks on security forces, police and civilians are reported regularly in the neighboring republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.
Over a decade after the war against Islamist separatists in Chechnya ended, Russian security forces and police continue to fight militants in the volatile region.
