Russian police say they killed three suspected militants who attacked a checkpoint in the violence-plagued North Caucasus province of Daghestan.
News agencies Interfax and TASS cited law enforcement officials as saying the assailants stole a car and opened fire at a police post near the mountain village of Khedba early on October 8.
The reports said police killed all three with return fire and suffered no casualties.
There was no way to independently verify the reports.
Dagestan is beset by violence linked to an Islamist insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet separatist wars in neighboring Chechnya as well as organized crimes, business disputes, and clan rivalry.
Sources told the news agencies the three men were believed to have been members of a "terrorist" cell and that Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition, grenades, and explosives were found in the car.
