Russian security service agents killed in Caucasus: official

A husband and wife who worked for Russia’s Federal Security Service have been murdered in the Caucasus while apparently on holiday, officials said on Friday.

The pair, who were not named, were killed late Thursday at a well known local beauty spot in the mountainous Chegem district of the region of Karbadino-Balkaria, the investigative committee of prosecutors said.

Four masked attackers seized the couple at a cafe close to a set of waterfalls that are a major local tourist magnet.

“The FSB employees were taken out of the cafe building to the river close to waterfalls and were shot dead,” an investigator told the ITAR-TASS news agency. The attackers then set fire to the couple’s car.

The FSB, the domestic successor to the Soviet-era KGB, is in charge of maintaining security in Russia. The reports said the couple worked for the FSB in the Krasnodar region to the west of Kabardino-Balkaria.

Karbadino-Balkaria is seen as more stable than violence-torn Caucasus regions such as Chechnya and Dagestan but has still seen mounting violence in the last months.