Two police shot dead in Russia

TWO officers were shot dead in an attack on a police station in Russia's volatile Caucasus region yesterday, officials said.

A group of assailants fatally wounded the two officers at the station in the Gergebil district of Dagestan province, an interior ministry spokesman revealed.

Attacks on police in Dagestan are frequent, and are blamed on criminal gangs and Islamic insurgents. Dagestan is among a group of predominantly Muslim republics in the North Caucasus which have seen a recent upsurge in violence.