Dagestan bombing kills one, injures 14

At least one police officer has been killed and 14 others injured after a bomb explosion in the southern Russian region of Dagestan.

The Saturday blast took place near the headquarters of Dagestan’s Interior Ministry in the provincial capital Makhachkala.

Police sources say two children and five officers are among the injured.

According to police spokesman Vyacheslav Gasanov, the attack was carried out by a female bomber, who was also killed in the blast.

On May 20, eight people were killed after two car bombs went off at the headquarters of the court bailiffs’ service in Makhachkala.

On May 1, at least two people were killed and two others were wounded by an explosion near a shopping center in the capital.

Moscow has been fighting militants since the mid-1990s in its North Caucasus region, 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.

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

Widespread unemployment, especially among young adults, is a major problem that has been attributed to an increased recruitment of people by separatist militants.