NAZRAN, Russia - Blasts and shooting on Friday killed at least four people in Russia's North Caucasus where the Kremlin is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency, Russian media reported.
In the town of Malgobek in Ingushetia, a police officer was killed and 10 people were injured when a blast struck as policemen attended the scene of another bomb that had earlier ripped through a store injuring a further three, a police spokesman told Reuters.
In a separate incident, a female kiosk seller was gunned down in Malgobek by unidentified gunmen, Interfax reported, citing an unnamed source.
The mainly Muslim North Caucasus is plagued by violence, where youths driven by poverty and the ideology of global jihad stage attacks almost daily. Many want to carve out a separate sharia state where strict Islam is practiced.
Kiosk sellers have been targeted in the past for selling alcohol by Islamist militants wanting to enforce sharia law in Ingushetia.
In nearby Dagestan, a witness who did not wish to be identified told Reuters that a gunman killed a spiritual leader by opening fire outside a mosque in a village, injuring one other person. Interfax reported that another shooting killed the district chief in Dagestan’s Magaramkent region, about 167 km (103 miles) southeast of the regional capital Makhachkala, as he was driving in his car.
Twin suicide bomb attacks on the Moscow metro in March which killed 40 turned the global spotlight on the North Caucasus. Authorities blamed the attacks on two women from Dagestan.
Though the Kremlin is pouring billions of dollars over the next several years into the North Caucasus, where unemployment is as high as 50 percent in some regions, religious and government leaders say many youths are turning to extremism.
