Twin Bombings Kill 9 in Dagestan, Russia
Close on the heels of Moscow Metro explosions, two bomb blasts have killed at least 9 people in the town of Kizlyar in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Dagestan.
The killed include a top regional police official. First it was a car bomb which detonated around 0830 (0430 GMT) in the town of Kizlyar, outside the offices of the local interior ministry and the FSB security agency. After about half an hour another bomb went off on the same street.
Kizlyar town is located close to Dagestan's border with Chechnya.
Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov had only last month, threatened saying, "the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia... the war is coming to their cities".
After some tough measures taken against the militants in Chechnya, violence increased in Dagestan. Last year, its interior minister was shot dead in June.
In today's second blast the chief of police in Kizlyar, Col Vitaly Vedernikov, was killed as reported by the officials.
The police chief was standing with the crowd at the car bombing site, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the site.
Since the twin Moscow subway explosions Monday morning killing 39 people, Russia has been on alert.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has asked the security forces to dig out the perpetrators of these bombings.
