Bomb Kills Border Guard, Injures Two in North Caucasus

A bomb explosion killed one border guard and injured two others in the troubled Russian Caucasus region of Dagestan over the weekend, investigators said on Sunday.

The makeshift bomb targeted a two-car motorcade carrying border guards between the villages of Kitlyart and Khupri, the Moscow-based investigative committee said.

One border guard died on the spot and two others were hospitalized, they said in a statement.

In a separate incident in the same region later Saturday, unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police patrol and wounded an officer before fleeing, regional interior ministry said.

In a third incident over the weekend, an unidentified assailant opened fire at a grocery store in the region's central city of Makhachkala where he also left a makeshift bomb that later went off, a regional police official told AFP. No-one was injured.

The Caspian Sea region experiences almost daily shootings and bombings that officials blame on local criminals and Islamists with links to Chechnya.

Fuelled by endemic poverty and corruption, the militants are seeking to establish an independent Islamic state across the North Caucasus.