| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Eight dead in blast in Russia's Dagestan |
| 2010-05-14 |
| [Dawn] Eight people were killed on Thursday in a bomb attack in Russia's southern region of Dagestan, the latest unrest in the troubled North Caucasus, officials said. "At around 10:30, an explosive device went off as repair workers drove by in a vehicle," the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors said in a statement. "As a result, eight people died and four police officers escorting the workers were wounded." The victims were workers who were sent to fix a cell phone mast that had been blown up the previous day by unidentified attackers in the district of Sergokalinsk, investigators said. "Police were sent to the scene and a shootout is currently in progress with the attackers," a spokesman for the local branch of the Federal Security Service told AFP. A group of investigators had set off for the scene and information on the dead and wounded was being checked, the investigative committee said. The workers from the republic's radio and television broadcasting centre may have been lured into an ambush by militants and blown up by a landmine, Russian NTV television reported. The police wounded included the commander of the republic's riot police, ITAR-TASS news agency reported. The local pro-Kremlin authorities in Dagestan and other North Caucasus regions are battling to defeat an insurgency that has already left scores of civilians and police dead. |
| Posted by:Fred |