Suicide bomber kills policeman in Russia’s Dagestan

A suicide bomber killed one policeman and wounded another in an attack in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus where security forces also killed at least three militants, officials said on Tuesday.

The bomber blew himself up during a routine document check in the city of Makhachkala in Dagestan, said a spokesman for the regional police.

“They came up to check his documents and he detonated the explosives,” the spokesman told AFP.

The attack took place near a restaurant and local police headquarters in the regional centre Makhachkala in Dagestan, which has experienced some of the deadliest violence in Russia’s mostly Muslim southern periphery, the spokesman added, declining to provide further details.

In a separate incident, police and FSB security services clashed with insurgents in the nearby region of Kabardino-Balkaria killing at least three of them, regional investigators said.

The militants, who were holed up in a residental building in the regional centre Nalchik, opened fire on authorities after they were ordered to lay down arms, the investigators said in a statement.

The National Anti-Terror Committee said residents of the high rise had to be evacuated for the duration of the special operation and no-one was hurt.

Attacks on officials in Kabardino-Balkaria, which is famed for its ski resorts, have been recently on the rise as the Caucasus violence spreads beyond the hotbed of the unrest in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia.

Last December, Anas Pshikhachev, Kabardino-Balkaria’s top mufti, was attacked by two assailants near Nalchik and died of his wounds on the spot.