MAKHACHKALA, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – Law enforcement officers have killed at least seven suspected militants in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, a law enforcement source said.
The source said six of them had been killed during a police operation to storm an apartment where the suspects were blocked.
Earlier on Saturday, a spokesman for Dagestan’s Interior Ministry reported that on Friday evening, a man armed with two pistols “opened fire on police officers in the cordon and tried to break through to a house where militants were blocked,” adding that the attacker was killed by return fire. Two police officers were injured.
The Islamist insurgency, once confined largely to Chechnya, has spread in recent years across the North Caucasus. Attacks on security forces, police and civilians are reported regularly in the neighboring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, as well as in Kabardino-Balkaria.