Suicide bomber kills 2 in Russia's Dagestan

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb killed two police officers and injured 17 other people on Thursday in Russia's Muslim Dagestan region, a local police spokesman said.

The spokesman said a suicide attacker set off the explosive after police stopped his car at a checkpoint about 100 km (60 miles) north of Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala.

Two traffic police officers were killed and six other police were injured, along with 11 civilians including a child, he said.

Dagestan borders Chechnya in the North Caucasus, where Russia is facing a persistent Islamist insurgency. The province is plagued by frequent attacks targeting law enforcement and government officials.

The blast came a month after twin bombings blamed on female suicide attackers from Dagestan killed 40 people on Moscow's metro on March 29, raising fears of a new wave of attacks in Russia's heartland by militants based in the Caucasus.

The Moscow bombings were followed by several deadly attacks in the North Caucasus, including two suicide blasts that killed 12 people, mostly police, in Dagestan on March 31.

The attacks have brought new Kremlin pledges to neutralize insurgents in the North Caucasus, hit by persistent violence since two devastating post-Soviet wars pitting government forces against separatist rebels in Chechnya.

(Writing by Steve Gutterman; editing by Maria Golovnina)