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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Fighting breaks out in Makhachkala |
| 2006-05-16 |
| Security forces battled two gunmen holed up in an apartment building in southern Russia’s Dagestan region on Tuesday, and four police and a civilian were injured in the latest violence in the restive North Caucasus, The Associated Press reported citing local law enforcement officials. Police laid siege to the five-story building in the town of Kizilyurt, and exchanged gunfire with the men — suspected militants believed to have been involved in fighting earlier this month that killed a police officer, regional Interior Ministry spokeswoman Anzhela Martirosova said. Four riot police were injured in the fighting, which began at night and continued past dawn, Martirosova said. Residents were evacuated from the building in the town 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala, but a civilian was injured, she said. UPDATE: A policeman and two rebels were killed on Tuesday in a gun battle in the southern Russian region of Dagestan, police told the Reuters news agency. At least nine other people including a civilian were injured, they said. The rebels had blockaded themselves in an apartment in Kizilyurt, a town northwest of the local capital, Makhachkala. Special forces surrounded the block of flats and stormed the building. The rebels had planned to seize a school in the town of Kizilyurt, Dagestan’s Interior Minister Agilgirei Magomedtagirov has told Itar-Tass. “A sheet of paper with the layout of a school building had been found in the pocket of one of the killed militants,” he said. Both killed men that are on the federal list of wanted criminals for a number of terrorism-related crimes. On May 6 they managed to escape, when a special operation was held in the Buinaksk district of Dagestan. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |