Russian security forces kill 5 militants-police

Wed Aug 25, 2010 5:38am EDT

MAKHACHKALA, Russia Aug 25 (Reuters) - Russian security forces killed five suspected militants on Wednesday in Dagestan, a southern Russian region plagued by violence linked to a growing Islamic insurgency, police said.

Security forces tried to stop a car on a road on the outskirts of Khasavyurt, a town on the border with Chechnya, and shot dead all five occupants after gunfire erupted from the car, Dagestan's Interior Ministry said.

The ministry's account could not be independently verified.

Dagestan, the easternmost province in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus, is home to dozens of ethnic groups.

The mostly Muslim province on the Caspian Sea has become a major focus of a Islamic insurgency rooted in the separatist wars that devasted Chechnya in the 1990s.

Federal officials said on Saturday security forces in Dagestan had killed a militant they said orchestrated twin suicide bombings that killed 40 people in Moscow's metro system in March.

Two of the men killed on Wednesday held leadership positions in insurgent groupings in the Khasavyurt area, the ministry said.

Dagestan is also plagued by violence stemming from internal economic disputes.




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