A suicide bomber triggered his explosives outside a police station in North Caucasus region of Ingushetia on Monday, killing two police officers, officials said.

Monday's bombing in Ingushetia came exactly a week after twin suicide attacks in the Moscow metro.

In the latest attack, a male, aged about 30, tried to enter police headquarters in the town of Karabulak, about 20 km (12 miles) from the Ingush regional capital of Magas, local and federal police told Reuters.

"A suicide bomber tried to get into the police headquarters during roll call, but after being stopped the bomber detonated the explosives," Oleg Yelnikov, a spokesman for Russia's Interior Ministry in Moscow, said by telephone.

Two police were killed immediately and a third was injured. Less than an hour after the suicide attack, a second bomb in a car opposite the police station was detonated.

A Reuters cameraman at the scene said several cars were burning outside the police station and the remains of the suspected suicide bomber were lying among rubble on the street.

Muslim regions

Russia is on edge after the attacks in the Moscow metro killed at least 40 last Monday, twin suicide bombing in Dagestan killed another 12 people on Wednesday and a bomb derailed a freight train in Dagestan on Sunday.

Russia's leaders say the attacks are aimed at sowing disorder across the country and have vowed to destroy Islamist militants from the North Caucasus who have been blamed or claimed responsibility.

Pro-independence Chechen fighters said on Wednesday that they were behind the Moscow bombings. The attacks were described as revenge for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's policies in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus.

Russian authorities said one of the Moscow bombers was the 17-year-old Dagestani-born widow of an insurgent killed last year, and a Dagestani man told the newspaper Novaya Gazeta that based on photos, he believes the other bomber was his daughter.

Chechen insurgent leader Doku Umarov, who calls himself the "Emir of the Caucasus Emirate", has vowed more attacks on Russia over its cruelties.

Putin cemented his power in 1999 by launching the second war in Chechnya. Russia imposed its control in Muslim states in the 1990s. Still
low-level insurgency continues in Muslim states controlled by Russia.

Human rights groups have repeatedly accused the authorities of serious abuses including house burning, extra-judicial killings, torture and illegal punishment.


Agencies