Police shot dead three militants on Monday in a gun battle in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, the Interior Ministry said.
The police attempted to stop a car near a local supermarket at about 4:00 p.m. local time on Monday but the occupants fired at them in response, the ministry said.
“Three unidentified suspects in the car were killed in return fire,” the ministry said. Two policemen were wounded in the shootout.
An Islamist insurgency once confined largely to Chechnya has spread in recent years across the North Caucasus, with attacks reported regularly in the neighboring republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria.