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Car bomb goes off in Dagestan – Two policemen die

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Two police officers have died and some 20 others have been injured in a car bomb explosion in Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan.

A spokesman for the Dagestani Interior Ministry said that a car exploded at the gate of a police department’s passport office in Tabasaransky District of Dagestan.

The two policemen were killed when a nearby building under construction caved-in due to the blast.

Among those injured were six police officers and one is in critical condition.

An investigation has been launched into the incident, but there has been no claim of responsibility for the blast.

The explosion on Monday was the latest in a series of recent bombings and shooting attacks in Dagestan.

On August 3, a police officer was killed and three others injured when gunmen opened fire on them at a checkpoint in the district of Kayakent.

On July 14, four police officers were killed in a similar attack in the village of Burshi, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) south-west of regional capital Makhachkala.

In addition, one police officer was killed and 14 others injured on May 25 after a bomb explosion occurred near the headquarters of Dagestan’s Interior Ministry in Makhachkala.

Russia has been fighting militants since the mid 1990s in North Caucasus, where the Republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia have been the scene of sporadic attacks and militant clashes.

Violence first broke out in Chechnya in 1994, when 250,000 people were forced to flee to neighboring territories because of a war between Chechen separatists and the Russian army.

After a short-lived period of relative peace from 1996 to 1999, the war resumed following attacks blamed on Chechen militant groups.

An estimated 100,000 people have been killed and thousands more displaced in the conflict.

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