An officer with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), a successor agency of the Soviet KGB, has been wounded in one of a series of gunfights that have flared up in the southern Dagestan region days after a Muslim leader was shot to death in nearby North Ossetia.
A passerby was also injured by gunfire during the attack in the town of Khasavyurt shortly before midnight Tuesday, Interfax reported, adding that the perpetrators fled the scene.
Police troops were also battling a group of militants in Dagestan's Gubden village early Wednesday, the news agency reported, citing a local law-enforcement official.
In another violent episode Tuesday, government forces stormed an apartment in the city of Makhachkala following a gunfight with militants who took cover in the building, Interfax reported. Two gunmen were killed during the raid.
The violence follows the shooting of North Ossetia's deputy mufti, Rasul Gamzatov, after a series of assassinations of Muslim leaders in the area earlier this year.
North Ossetia's chief mufti, Khadzhimurat Gatsalov, has said the killing of Gamzatov and another deputy two years earlier may be an attempt to "spread discord" in the republic.
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