A suicide bomber blew up an explosives-packed car at a police station in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus on Wednesday, killing six officers and wounding at least 16 people, officials said.
The officers who died took action to prevent far greater devastation at the traffic police station on the outskirts of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, where 150 officers were lined up outside for roll call at the time of the attack, city police chief Col. Shamil Guseinov said.
The bomber detonated the explosives at the station gate after police stopped him from driving through, Col. Guseinov said. Those killed were at the gate, including three officers in a police jeep that blocked the attacker’s path, he said.
A similar bombing in a neighbouring republic of Ingushetia in August killed 24 people and injured more than 200. In that attack, a man succeeded in crashing a bomb-laden van through the gates of the police station in Nazran. The explosion left a bus-sized crater in what was left of the station.
Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya, all predominantly Muslim republics in the North Caucasus, have seen a sharp rise in violence last year, with many of the nearly daily attacks targeting police and other officials.
The violence sweeping the impoverished southern region is increasingly being described as a civil war between Kremlin-supported administrations and Islamic militants.
Source:http://beta.thehindu.com/news/international/article76832.ece
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