A FSB unit was searching the woods near the village of Kakamakhi with the help of local guides when they were attacked by militants Tuesday afternoon, said Nizami Radzhabov, a spokesman for the regional Investigative Committee.

“There was a gunfight,” he said. As a result, one FSB officer and one guide were killed and another FSB officer and guide wounded and hospitalized, Radzhabov told AFP.

Dagestan is part of Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region where authorities are battling an Islamist insurgency and where shootings and bomb attacks are nearly a daily occurence.