At least 10 Russian soldiers were killed by a bomb today as they paid a weekly visit to a steam bathhouse in a town near Russia's rebel Chechnya, officials said.
The bomb exploded as a unit of interior ministry troops filed into the washhouses in the town of Makhachkala, regional capital of Muslim Dagestan that borders Chechnya.
“A military truck with soldiers from the 102nd interior troop brigade blew up on Akayev Street at 2.20 pm. Ten people, some of them servicemen and some passers-by, have died,” Dagestan's deputy prosecutor said.
Doctors later clarified this to say that all the dead were soldiers. Fourteen other people, including some passers-by, were being treated for severe injuries.
Dagestan, a territory by the Caspian Sea, has suffered from an overspill of violence from Chechnya since separatist war erupted in the North Caucasus territory more than a decade ago.
It has been the scene of numerous bomb and shooting attacks and incursions by Chechen rebels over the past 10 years.