Suicide car bombing at police station in Russia’s North Caucasus kills 6, wounds 16

Suicide bombing kills 6 Russian police, wounds 16

MAKHACHKALA, Russia — 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, 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 the neighboring 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, saw 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. Widespread abuses against civilians by police, including abductions, torture and killings, have helped to swell the ranks of the militants.

Suicide bombings, once rare, are occurring with growing frequency.

The bomber’s body was blown to bits. Investigators determined that the homemade bomb packed into the Niva, a small Russian-made SUV, was equivalent to 80 to 100 kilograms (175 to 220 pounds) of TNT, Guseinov said.

The blast knocked out windows and destroyed parked cars up to 200 meters (yards) away. Buckshot from the explosive device was strewn across the area.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. It came six days after police killed four suspected militants, including a man they claimed commanded the insurgency in Dagestan. Russian television showed pictures of a small notebook found on the man, Umalat Magomedov, which authorities said contained records of the militants’ expenditures and revenues.

Guseinov said police had received information about a planned attack and had moved the daily roll call well inside the station’s territory, 200 meters (yards) from the gate.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said six officers were killed and at least 16 people were wounded, possibly including a couple of civilians.

President Dmitry Medvedev immediately ordered the interior minister, who oversees Russia’s police, to step up security in Dagestan and provide assistance to the families of the officers who died.

Dagestan, home to 2.7 million people, is the most multiethnic region in Russia, with more than a dozen official languages.

Dagestan and Ingushetia both border Chechnya, where Russian troops have fought two full-scale wars against separatist rebels in the past 15 years.

In the most recent violence in Chechnya, four police troops were injured in two separate attacks on Tuesday. In both cases, an explosive device blew up as the troops walked along a village road or wooded path, police spokesman Magomed Deniyev said.

Associated Press writers Sergei Venyavsky in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.