NOVOSELITSKOYE,STAVROPOL REGION, Russia (Reuters) – Three men attacked a rural police station in southern Russia on Monday (April 11) including at least one suicide bomber, the country’s Interior Ministry said, saying police in the affected area had been put on a high state of alert.
The attack took place in the village of Novoselitskoye in Russia’s Stavropol region, close to the volatile majority-Muslim North Caucasus area, where Islamist extremists intent upon carving out a breakaway caliphate have targeted policemen in a series of car bombings and shootings.
Soldiers and police in the village blocked streets in the village with APCs and deployed a helicopter overhead. Investigators working at the scene were photographed next to blood stains on the walls of the police station.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Stavropol told Reuters that an attack took place on a regional police station. According to the ministry one of the attackers blew himself up while two others were killed.
A spokesman for Russia’s Anti-Terrorist Committee, Vadim Druzhinin, said nobody else – including police officers – had been hurt.
“Bomb-disposal experts and investigators are now working at the scene. There is no information on casualties among police officers. A counter-terrorist operation is underway on the territory of Novoselitsky district,” he said.
Accounts of what happened varied. Some Russian news agencies cited unnamed police sources as saying three suicide bombers had managed to blow themselves up and that there were four attackers in total. Reuters could not independently confirm that.
The interior ministry spokesman said the authorities had responded to the attack by activating the “Fortress Plan,” which meant police had been put on a higher state of military-style readiness.