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Two policemen were killed in a shootout with unknown gunmen in Russia’s Chechnya region and two others were wounded in a bomb attack in neighbouring Dagestan, RIA Novosti agency reported Sunday.
“The policemen were shot in course of a shootout with unknown persons near a produce market” in the regional capital Grozny late Saturday, an investigation committee representative told the agency.
Two were wounded separately in Makhachkala, in Dagestan, when an explosive device was detonated near their car, police said.
The Kremlin has been fighting insurgents in the Northern Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union, waging a war in 1994-1996 against separatist rebels in Chechnya.
After a second war broke out in Chechnya in 1999, the rebellion’s inspiration moved towards Islam with the aim of imposing an Islamic state in the region.
Although the war ended in 2000, rebels have waged an increasingly deadly insurgency with unrest spreading into other areas of the Northern Caucasus such as Dagestan and Ingushetia.