MAKHACHKALA, March 21 (RIA Novosti) – A special forces officer has been killed and two other officers injured during a shootout with suspected militants near Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, police said on Wednesday.

A police spokesman said the “bandits” had been holed up in a house in the village of Semender since Wednesday, and had begun shooting after five women and a child left the building.

The counterterrorism operation in Semender began early on Wednesday, after security forces entered the village to search for a suspected member of an illegal armed group.

Mainly Muslim Dagestan, which neighbors Chechnya, is home to a low-level Islamist insurgency and sees frequent attacks on police and other officials.