MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) — A police official says a suspected militant was killed while trying to set up an explosive device in a volatile southern province east of Chechnya.
Regional police spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said Sunday that police shot the militant late Saturday on a highway in the Buinaksk district of Dagestan.
He also says a police officer lost a hand after an explosion on Sunday in the regional capital, Makhachkala.
Tolchinsky says the officer tried to remove a beer can stuffed with explosives from the hood of his car.
The predominantly Muslim province has been plagued by violence that has surged in recent years in Russia’s North Caucasus since the 1990s separatist wars in Chechnya.
