‘Three suicide bombers’ attack police station in south Russia

Three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a police station in southern Russia on Monday as they tried to storm the building, police said, but no other casualities were reported.

“We were holding a meeting in the morning when five explosions went off,” Sergei Karamyshev, a senior police officer in the village of Novoselitskoye in the southern Stavropol region, told AFP.

“Three people blew themselves up after an officer on duty at the entrance blocked the door to the building,” Karamyshev said.

He said that in all there were five explosions: the three suicide bombers and one grenade, but that the cause of the fifth blast was not immediately known.

He said nothing was yet known about the bombers.

A spokeswoman for police in the Stavropol region said one of the attackers had died by detonating an explosive device, while two others were killed by “return fire.”

“They were shooting at the building,” Natalya Tyncherova told AFP, adding that the exact number of assailants was still unclear.

Russia’s North Caucasus has been gripped by nearly daily violence for years due to a simmering Islamist insurgency there but attacks in southern Russia are extremely rare.

In December, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a deadly shooting in Derbent, a city in the North Caucacus republic of Dagestan with an ancient citadel that is popular with tourists.