Rostov-On-Don: A parked car exploded outside
a cafe in southern Russia on Tuesday, injuring at least 20 people,
police said.
The explosion occurred just outside the cafe in downtown
Pyatigorsk, a city in Russia`s North Caucasus, said Stanislav
Belyayev, a spokesman for the Stavropol regional police. The
wounded were cafe customers and passers-by, he said.
Belyayev said the explosion appeared to be a deliberate
terror attack, although an official probe had only just
started.
Bombings and other attacks occur regularly in the North
Caucasus, where violence has spread following two separatist
wars in Chechnya. While most attacks are carried out by
militants targeting police and other officials, some are the
result of business disputes.
Hours earlier today, a suicide bomber killed a police
officer and wounded two others in the neighbouring North
Caucasus province of North Ossetia.
The attacker blew himself up at a police checkpoint on
the outskirts of the provincial capital, Vladikavkaz, regional
police spokesman Aslan Dzgoyev said. The bomber, who died in
the explosion, was accompanied by two other men. One of them
was captured after police shot and wounded him, while the
other escaped.
PTI
