Blast In Southern Russian Republic Targets Police

Daghestan has not emerged unscathed from a decade of unrest in southern Russia (file photo) 14 February 2005 -- One police officer has been reported killed and three other officers injured in a bomb explosion in the southern Russian republic of Daghestan, which borders war-ravaged Chechnya.

ITAR-TASS quoted an official in the republican Interior Ministry as saying a device containing the equivalent of some 500 grams of TNT went off last night as the police officers' vehicle passed by some 200 meters from a police building in Makhachkala, the Daghestani capital.

Daghestan has seen a series of shootings, bombings, and other violence, including clashes between security forces and armed militants. Russian authorities have blamed some of the unrest on militants from neighboring Chechnya.

Russian authorities announced today that special-forces troops killed six rebels in Chechnya overnight in an effort to preempt attacks on Russian forces.

(ITAR-TASS/AP/AFP)