Rostov-On-Don: Russian officials said on Friday that at least 14 suspected Islamic militants had been killed and one police officer wounded in two days of fighting in the volatile southern province of Ingushetia.
The clash, in the forested mountains near the border with Chechnya, was one of the bloodiest and most prolonged in Ingushetia in recent months.
Svetlana Gorbakova of the region`s Investigative Committee said 14 bodies of suspected insurgents had been found after the fighting, but Kaloi Akhilgov, a spokesman for the Ingush president, put the toll at 18.
Ingushetia has not seen a full-scale insurgent war like the two that broke out in Chechnya over the past decade and a half, but suffers persistent small-scale clashes between militants and police and soldiers.
PTI
