Dagestan

A car bomb exploded in southern Russia near Chechnya early today, injuring a local government official and his driver, police said. The bomb ripped through an armored jeep outside the Kavkaz hotel in the city of Makhachkala, the capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan, police said. The vice premier of Dagestan, Ilyas Umakhanov, and his driver were hurt in the blast, according to the Dagestan Federal Security Service. It was not clear whether the two were in the vehicle.

An explosion killed three people and wounded 60 in the troubled southern Russian region of Dagestan on Friday, Interfax news agency said, quoting local emergency officials. Russian media said bodies had been pulled out of the rubble less than an hour after the evening blast, which destroyed several buildings near the home of the mayor of Dagestan's capital, Makhachkala. Itar-Tass news agency said the blast left a 15-foot-wide crater.

At least 10 Russian Interior Ministry soldiers were killed by a bomb near a bathhouse in Makhachkala, capital of the Dagestan region, justice officials and doctors said. Prosecutors said 28 people were wounded in the blast, which occurred near a roadside water pipeline. The soldiers who died were part of a contingent of about 50 who had arrived at the bathhouse in three trucks.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin paid a surprise visit to the troubled southern republic of Dagestan on Friday and reassured its mostly Muslim residents that Moscow would protect them from guerrillas trying to set up an Islamic state. Dagestan, which borders the separatist republic of Chechnya, was the scene of fierce fighting between federal troops and Chechen-led guerrillas until this week.

A bomb exploded in a pile of garbage in Makhachkala, the capital of the southern Russian republic of Dagestan, killing a serviceman and wounding five others who had been searching for explosives, police said. A group of people who were spotted filming the explosion fled in a car, said police official Ilyamin Magomedov. After police stopped the car near the Chechen border, three men jumped out and opened fire, wounding an officer.

Swarms of locusts have attacked rice and other crops in northern Dagestan, threatening harvests and winter pastures for more than 1.5 million sheep, Russian regional officials said. The first insects appeared in three districts June 9 and have covered about 44 square miles, the Dagestani Emergency Committee said.

A shootout with Islamic militants at a police station left 14 Russian troops dead Monday, even as residents of the southern republic of Dagestan became increasingly angry that federal forces have failed to oust the rebels despite a month of fighting. The militants, seeking an independent Islamic state, have battled Russian troops since seizing several villages in Dagestan on Aug. 7. Government troops responded with air and ground attacks, pushing the rebels out of some areas.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin met Saturday with a Muslim leader to seek ways to defuse the situation in the republic of Dagestan, where Russian forces are fighting Muslim insurgents. Putin, a former KGB spy whose appointment was approved by parliament Monday, discussed the Dagestani conflict with Ravil Gainutdin, a leader of Russia's Muslim Council of Muftis, a spokesman said.

With a watermelon under his arm and a broad smile on his face, Shamil Basayev looks for a moment like a man at a picnic, not a warrior, a hostage-taker, a terrorist. But the video snippet that plays repeatedly on national television is deeply unsettling to Russian viewers.

Amid signs that fighting in the Russian republic of Dagestan has spread into neighboring Chechnya, military officials for the first time acknowledged Thursday that they face serious problems in their bid to control a guerrilla rebellion in Dagestan, a troubled southern region. Russian planes continued rocket and bomb attacks in the area of seven Dagestani villages seized by Islamic militants who invaded from nearby Chechnya last weekend.