MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) – One police officer was killed and four others injured in a shooting in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on Saturday, Russia’s Investigative Committee has said.
Unidentified gunmen opened fire on police near a dental clinic in Makhachkala, the republic’s capital, the committee said in a statement. Earlier reports said three police officers were injured in the incident.
One of the attackers was located by police in an apartment in downtown Makhachkala later on Saturday. A search for another suspected gunman is ongoing.
Attacks on security forces, police and civilians occur regularly in the North Caucasus, generated by ethnic, religious and political rivalries, as well as poverty and corruption. The violence is also fed by an Islamist insurgency, which has been especially resilient in Dagestan and fueled a series of bloody post-Soviet separatist wars in the neighboring republic of Chechnya.
