MAKHACHKALA, Russia ��" Two suicide bombers including one impersonating a police officer killed 12 people in southern Russia on Wednesday, two days after deadly suicide bombings blamed on the region's militants tore through the Moscow subway system. Wednesday's blasts in the province of Dagestan came despite Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's vow to "drag out of the sewer" the terrorists who carried out the Moscow attacks, which killed 39 and injured scores more. There have been no claims of responsibility for either set of attacks. Bombings and other attacks occur almost daily in Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia, provinces in Russia's North Caucasus region where government forces are struggling against a separatist Islamist insurgency. The Moscow subway bombings were the first suicide attacks in the capital in six years and shocked a country that had grown accustomed to such violence being confined to its restive southern corner. Those attacks followed a recent warning from an Islamic militant leader that the militants would bring their struggle to the heart of Russia. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber detonated explosives when police tried to stop the bomber's car in the town of Kizlyar near Dagestan's border with Chechnya, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said in televised comments. "Traffic police followed the car and almost caught up ��" at that time the blast hit," Nurgaliyev said. As investigators and residents gathered at the scene of the blast, a second bomber wearing a police uniform approached and set off explosives, killing the town's police chief among others, Nurgaliyev added. A school and police station nearby were also damaged. At least 23 people were injured in both blasts, authorities said. Grainy cell phone video footage posted on the life.ru news portal showed the moment of the second blast, with officials wandering past a destroyed building before a loud clap rings out and smoke rises in the distance. Police and security services are a frequent target in part because they represent the Kremlin ��" the militants' ideological enemy ��" but also because of their heavy-handed tactics. Police have been accused of involvement in many killings, kidnappings and beatings in the region, further alienating residents.
