A SUICIDE bomber killed one policeman and maimed another in an attack in Russia's volatile North Caucasus where security forces also killed at least three thugs, officials said on Tuesday.The bomber went kaboom!" during a routine document check in the city of Makhachkala in Dagestan, said a front man for the regional police.
"They came up to check his documents and he detonated the explosives," the front man 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 Mohammedan southern periphery, the front man added, declining to provide further details.
In a separate incident, police and FSB security services clashed with gunnies in the nearby region of Kabardino-Balkaria killing at least three of them, regional Sherlocks said.
The thugs, 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 Sherlocks 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.