Four Russian policemen were killed and nine injured in clashes with rebel fighters in Russia's violence-torn region of Chechnya, Russian news agencies reported Friday.
Overnight from Thursday to Friday, Russian forces launched an operation to flush out two guerrilla fighters, holed up in a deserted house in the village of Kerla-Urt in Chechnya's Groznensky district, reported AFP.
The two gunmen were killed in the operation, a police source told the Interfax news agency.
"As a result, four police officers were killed and four more have been hospitalised with gunshot wounds,"
In a separate clash, five policemen were hospitalised after being wounded in a gunfight with eight rebels earlier Thursday.
An "operation in the woods uncovered eight members of an illegal armed group, who opened fire resisting arrest," a police source told the RIA Novosti news agency Friday.
Deadly clashes between government forces and Islamist rebels are common in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim region in the North Caucasus mountains.
The region was the site of two wars between separatists and Russia's central government after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the insurgency has spilled over with increasing violence in the neighbouring regions.
4 Russian police killed, 9 hurt in Chechen clashes
Four Russian policemen were killed and nine injured in clashes with rebel fighters in Russia's violence-torn region of Chechnya, Russian news agencies reported Friday.
