Three Russian special forces personnel were killed in the North Caucasus

Three Russian special forces personnel were killed in the North Caucasus

Three Russian special forces troops were killed Wednesday in a security operation against militants in the restive North Caucasus region , said the National Anti - Terrorism Committee .

Russia increased security ahead of the opening of the 2014 Winter Olympics next month in the city area in the south of the Black Sea , Sochi , amid fears of possible attacks by militants from the North Caucasus . The success of the sport would be a gamble for the dignity of President Vladimir Putin , AFP reported .

Sochi is located approximately 550 kilometers from Khasavyurt , Dagestan , where a security operation was underway .

Police and special forces surrounded a house in the village Karlanyurt where gunmen believed to be hiding , the " anti - terrorism operations ," the committee said in a report on its website .

" The bandits ... trying to break the siege by using machine guns and hand grenades , " the committee said .

" Three special forces personnel were killed , five others wounded , " the report said , adding that at least two militants were killed in the raid.

The Committee alleges that one of the two militants were killed , Marat Idrisov , led a group of rebels in Dagestan and take part in a car bomb attack in December last year that killed three policemen in the resort town of Pyatigorsk .

Pyatigorsk is located in the Stavropol region near the Krasnodar region , which includes Sochi , and is in the north area of ​​the restive North Caucasus is plagued by violence almost every day .

In late December , two bomb attacks killed at least 34 people in the city of Volgograd , about 700 kilometers north-east of Sochi .

In October, a suicide attack killed six people at a bus in the city of Volgograd , southern Russia .

The Kremlin is still trying to cope with Muslim insurgents in the Caucasus , a decade after federal forces in the Chechen separatist pry dominance . Violence from Chechnya that even extends to Moscow .

Suicide attack launched by an actor from the North Caucasus killed 37 people at Russia's Domodedovo airport densest in January 2011 .

The attack was made by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev when the police fired a number of mid-level officials and leading to Domodedovo Pendongkelan senior managers .

The suicide bombing claimed by Doku Umarov , the leader of the Caucasus Emirate carried out attacks in Chechnya and other regions in the North Caucasus Muslim .

Violence flared in the North Caucasus Muslim majority , where the rebels were angered by poverty and driven by the ideology of global jihad want to establish an independent state based on sharia law .

Dagestan , which is located in the coastal area of ​​the Caspian Sea , has replaced its neighboring regions as the violence in the North Caucasus Muslim majority .

Dagestan borders Chechnya in the North Caucasus , where Russia face Islamist violence , and the predominantly Muslim province that is often hit by attacks targeting law enforcement officers and government officials .

The attacks have made the Kremlin promised again to crush insurgents in the North Caucasus . The region is plagued by violence since the two post - Soviet wars in Chechnya between separatist rebels and government forces .