MAKHACHKALA, October 2 (RIA Novosti) – Two police officers and one civilian have been killed in a shootout with suspected militants in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, a spokesman for the Investigative Committee’s regional department reported.
Another three police officers were wounded in the incident that occurred in the republic's central Levashinsky District on Tuesday, the spokesman said.
Earlier, the republic’s Interior Ministry said one policeman was killed, and his two colleagues and one civilian were wounded.
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.
