ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — Four suspected rebels and one police officer have died in fighting in Chechnya, a spokesman for the regional branch of Russia's Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
Magomed Deniyev said police acting on a tip surrounded a house in the southern village of Goity where two suspected militants were holed up Wednesday.
He said the gunmen refused to surrender and died in the fighting, which also killed a police officer and wounded two others.
Deniyev said a suspected militant was also killed Wednesday in the village of Yermolovka outside the provincial capital Grozny, and another rebel was tracked down and killed in Grozny late Tuesday.
Small groups of militants stage frequent attacks against authorities in Chechnya, which has seen two separatist wars in the last 15 years.
Late Tuesday, several rebels fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades on trucks carrying federal Interior Ministry troops near the village of Khatuni in the southern Vedeno region, wounding two men, said Roman Shchekotin, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry's division for southern Russia.
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