Moscow, September 12: Four militants were today killed in a counter-terrorist operation on the outskirts of Makhachkala, the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, a police spokesman told Russian news agencies.
The Spokesman said the operation began at 6 am Moscow time in the village of Tarnair. The militants were suspected of involvement in the killing of Deputy Prosecutor in Makhachkala, and an attack on police in the city of Kizilyurt. Officials identified one of the dead militants as Bagautdin Kamalutdinov, a local terrorist leader.
RIA Novosti reported quoting a police official that three police officers were hospitalised with serious injuries today after an explosion in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Chechnya.
”At 8:00 am Moscow time, a blast occurred in the centre of Grozny,” he said, adding that the explosive device had been detonated by a suicide bomber. It was earlier reported that the police officers had died. Chechnya, like neighbouring Muslim-dominated republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, has seen an upsurge of militant violence, with frequent attacks on police and security troops.
A monument dedicated to Chechnya’s first President Akhmad Kadyrov was dismantled in Grozny on Thursday.
The Kremlin officially ended its anti-terrorism operation in Chechnya in April. The republic saw two brutal separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s.
—-Agencies