ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) — Russian special forces have killed four suspected Chechen rebels in an anti-terror operation in which a policeman also died, officials said.

A spokesman for Chechnya's Interior Ministry said Wednesday that forces had surrounded a group of 20 militants in a building in the southeast of the province.

Magomed Deniyev says investigators identified two of the slain suspects as men wanted for serious crimes.

Chechnya is among three Russian provinces with an Islamist insurgency that President Dmitry Medvedev last month labeled a "cancerous tumor."

Officials say the separatist militants conduct daily attacks on law enforcement officials. Rights activists say authorities use the insurgency to justify often brutal repression of the population.