Two days after gunmen shot dead two policemen in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan, the group is believed to have launched a new attack, injuring three officers, two of them critically. One shooter was taken down and has reportedly been identified.
Three Russian National Guard servicemen were shot at from a moving vehicle in an ongoing manhunt for Astrakhan shooters, RIA Novosti reported, citing a local police source. There were three attackers and one of them was killed, it said.
Police have cordoned off the entire district of the city where the attack took place, with no vehicles allowed in or out.
Local investigators have confirmed to Sputnik news agency that the attacker has been identified as a suspect in the fatal April 4 shooting.
“As a result of the armed confrontation, three law enforcement members were injured, one of the attackers was eliminated by return fire. During the shootout, other attackers managed to escape, they also seized the weapons of the law enforcement members. The eliminated attacker has been identified as one of those wanted in the criminal case, according to preliminary information,” a regional Investigative Committee spokesman told Sputnik.
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The killed attacker has been identified as Ramzan Kukulayev, a wanted criminal, TASS reported, citing police sources. Two of the injured servicemen have been hospitalized in critical condition, the agency said.
On Tuesday, Astrakhan Governor Aleksanr Zhilkin told media that the April 4 attackers were a group of Islamist extremists, following an emergency counter-terrorist meeting on the attack.
On April 4, at least four armed assailants in a vehicle shot and killed two police officers who arrived at the scene of a road traffic accident. The attack took place while police were writing up an on-the-spot accident report. One of the officers was reported to be a father of two.
The attacks come amid a heightened terror alert in Russia following the Monday bombing of the St. Petersburg Metro, in which 14 people were killed and some 50 hospitalized in a suspected terrorist attack.
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