Suicide blast in Russian Caucasus kills one

NAZRAN: A suicide bomber detonated explosives near a police post in the North Ossetia province in Russia's Caucasus on Tuesday, killing one officer and wounding three others, police said.

The attack occurred in North Ossetia's Prigorodny district, the site of a territorial dispute between ethnic Ossetians and Ingush that erupted into deadly fighting in 1992 and remains a source of tension.

The attacker blew himself up after approaching a police checkpoint on a road near the border with Ingushetia province, a North Ossetia police official said.

Predominantly Orthodox Christian North Ossetia has also been the site of attacks by extremists militants from the North Caucasus whose violent campaign against Russian authorities stems from the 1990s separatist wars in Chechnya. Many are based in the Muslim Russian republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Beslan, where militants seized a school in a 2004 attack that led to more than 330 deaths, is in North Ossetia. —Reuters