Suicide bombers attack Russian military base

A suicide car car bomb attack targets a military base in Russia's southern Dagestan, with an unknown number of casualties, as Russian soldier is killed in a separate attack.

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb near a military base in Russia's southern region of Dagestan today, killing an unknown number of people, according to officials. "According to preliminary information there were fatalities, their number is being established," an unnamed military official was quoted as saying, according to Interfax news agency. A soldier was killed in a separate blast in the same city. The explosion took place in the city of Kaspiisk on the eighth anniversary of the bombing of a military parade that killed 43 people. Sunday is Victory Day in Russia, the country's most solemn secular holiday, commemorating the 1945 defeat of Nazi Germany. Magomed Umalatov, a regional spokesman for the Federal Security Service, says two people confirmed killed are believed to be the suicide bombers who were in the car. A regional police spokesman says the soldier was killed when a bomb exploded outside a house where soldiers live.

Insurgents from neighbouring Chechnya have launched attacks on Victory Day, a holiday associated with the mass deportation of ethnic Chechens by Stalin during the war. Dagestan, Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia are at the centre of an Islamist insurgency aimed at establishing an independent Islamic state. * Reuters and AP