Dagestan Blast Believed Aimed at Mayor Kills 3
An explosion killed three people and wounded 60 in the troubled southern Russian region of Dagestan on Friday, Interfax news agency said, quoting local emergency officials.
Russian media said bodies had been pulled out of the rubble less than an hour after the evening blast, which destroyed several buildings near the home of the mayor of Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala.
Itar-Tass news agency said the blast left a 15-foot-wide crater.
The mayor, Said Amirov, has been the target of several attacks this year, and NTV television reported that he had been targeted again in the latest explosion.
Dagestan, next to the separatist republic of Chechnya, is home to more than 30 ethnic groups and is rife with weapons. It has seen mounting lawlessness and religious strife this year.
The mainly Muslim region’s mainstream Islamic religious leader was killed by a car bomb last month after speaking out against militant Islamic sects.
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