Dozens Hurt by 2 Bombs in Capital of Dagestan

A coordinated pair of explosions in the capital of Dagestan early Thursday killed at least one person and wounded dozens more in the violence-plagued republic in Russia’s North Caucasus region, officials said.

A first explosion wounded four police officers. A second, more powerful one wounded rescuers.

The first blast hit a police car, officials said, wounding four officers. The second, more powerful bomb, planted in or under a car, wounded police officers and rescuers who rushed to the scene.

Reports of the number hurt ranged from 30 to 60. Stores and residential buildings near the blast in the capital, Makhachkala, were damaged or destroyed, officials said.

The attack in Makhachkala, on the Caspian Sea, was the latest in a series in a republic that has overtaken the neighboring republic of Chechnya as the most dangerous place in the region.

In the first nine months of this year, 315 people were killed, 224 wounded and 18 kidnapped in Dagestan, according to an independent Internet news site, Caucasian Knot. An estimated 100 police officers are killed every year in attacks aimed at representatives of the government and security forces.

The violence involves a combination of a growing Islamist insurgency along with criminal gangs and clan wars that have plagued Dagestan, home to 2.5 million people, for many years. A poverty-ridden mountainous republic composed of more than 30 ethnic groups, Dagestan is supported by large financial subsidies from Moscow, while soldiers and the police try to quell almost daily episodes of violence.

Late Wednesday, another explosion in Makhachkala killed three people in a car that was apparently transporting a bomb, wounding several bystanders, officials told the Agence France-Presse news agency.

On Thursday morning several people assaulted a local police chief in the town of Buinaksk, about 20 miles from Makhachkala, killing two of his bodyguards, the news service reported.

Later on Thursday militants attacked a military convoy in the Tsunta district of Dagestan, wounding one serviceman, the Interfax news agency reported. It quoted an official as saying the assailants had escaped.

The latest violence shows the mistakes of the government’s terrorism policy, which relies on the use of force, Oleg Orlov, head of Memorial, a human rights group, told Interfax.

The agency quoted him as saying that these policies, along with abuse by law enforcement officers and widespread corruption, are the root causes of the unrest in Dagestan.