Police, security forces battle gunmen in Makhachkala

Police and security forces on Sunday were battling an unspecified number of gunmen in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia's restive Dagestan region. One alleged rebel was wounded, according to the city police department.

The gunmen were discovered Saturday and police and Federal Security Service officers blockaded them in an apartment building in the center of the city, Russian news agencies reported.

Dagestan, a Caspian Sea province, suffers spillover violence from Chechnya and is riven by disputes among local ethnic groups and homegrown criminal clans. But cities throughout the mostly Muslim Caucasus Mountains region of Russia has seen increasingly frequent standoffs between police and alleged militants in recent years, AP reports.

А. А.