MOSCOW, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Police in the central part of the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan on Saturday killed a man who attacked them, a spokesman for the regional Investigative Committee department reported.
“Police officers stopped a Ford Focus leaving the town of Kizilyurt at a checkpoint,” the spokesman said. “When asked for an ID, the driver opened fire on policemen and was killed by return fire.”
An investigation is under way.
In another shooting incident in the restive southern republic’s capital of Makhachkala, one police officer was killed and four others were wounded Saturday, Russia’s Investigative Committee reported. Manhunt activities were ongoing.
Attacks on security forces, police and civilians occur regularly in the North Caucasus, generated by ethnic, religious and political rivalries, as well as poverty and corruption. The violence is also fed by an Islamist insurgency, which has been especially resilient in Dagestan and fueled a series of bloody post-Soviet separatist wars in the neighboring republic of Chechnya.
