'Neo-Nazi' Kills 2 at FSB Office in Eastern Russia

W460

A gunman with alleged links to a neo-Nazi group Friday shot dead an employee of Russia's FSB security service and a civilian at the agency's office in a far eastern city, officials said.

The FSB said the attacker -- named as local resident A.V. Konev, born in 1999 -- opened fire immediately after entering the reception of an FSB building in the city of Khabarovsk before he was himself shot dead. 

"There is information about his belonging to a neo-Nazi group," the FSB said in a statement, without giving any more details. 

Earlier, Russia's main domestic intelligence agency said an assailant killed an "FSB employee" and a "visitor" after bursting into the reception area at 17:02 (0702 GMT) on Friday. 

One other visitor was reported injured in the attack. 

Deadly attacks on Russian law enforcement officials are rare outside the country's volatile North Caucasus region. 

The country has seen significant support for far-right groups that have sparked brutal confrontations with immigrants from the former Soviet region. 

Despite stoking nationalist sentiment since the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, the authorities under President Vladimir Putin have also cracked down on neo-Nazi extremists. 

The country has been on heightened alert since an alleged suicide bomb attack on the metro in the second city of Saint Petersburg on April 3 left 15 people dead.

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