Russian authorities say three police were killed and six injured in a clash with militants in the mountains near the Chechnya-Dagestan provincial border in southern Russia.
Magomed Deniev, a spokesman for Chechnya's interior ministry, said police searching a forest yesterday night
found the group of up to 10 unidentified fighters and engaged in a firefight.
All the fighters managed to escape and hide in the forest.
Dagestan is plagued by near-daily violence. Most of the violence is connected to an Islamic insurgency that originated in neighboring Chechnya and has spread across Russia's Caucasus region.