Eight killed in North Caucasus bomb attack

Makhachkala, Russia: At least eight people were killed yesterday in an attack in Russia's North Caucasus province of Dagestan, officials said.

A bomb blast hit a police-escorted vehicle carrying repair workers sent to fix a communications tower that had been damaged in a sabotage attack overnight, the Russian prosecutor general's office said.

Most or all of the eight people killed in the attack, about 80km south of Dagestan's capital Makhachkala, were believed to have been repairmen, a provincial Interior Ministry spokesman said. Four police officers were wounded.

Hours later, police were still exchanging fire with the attackers, he said.

Dagestan, adjacent to Chechnya in Russia's heavily Muslim North Caucasus, is plagued by daily violence including frequent attacks that target law enforcement officials.

Authorities blame most of the attacks on militants, but some violence is connected to organised crime and to clan rivalries. Most militants are separatists.

Russian authorities blame female suicide bombers from Dagestan for twin blasts that killed 40 people in Moscow's metro on March 29. The Chechen leader of the main militant group in the North Caucasus claimed responsibility for the attack.

Suicide bombers killed 12 people in Dagestan two days later, most of them police officers.

Dagestan, Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia have suffered increased violence over the past two years.