MOSCOW: One policeman was killed and two others wounded in a shootout on Thursday with two natives of Russia`s volatile Northern Caucasus in Moscow, police said.

The shootout took place after a police night patrol stopped two men to check their identity as they were milling around a car in southeast Moscow, said a spokesman for Moscow police, Anatoly Lastovetsky.

The first man managed to escape, while the other one "took out a gun and started shooting without saying a word", Lastovetsky told AFP.

As a result of the skirmish, which took place soon after midnight, one policeman died and two others received gunshot wounds and were hospitalised. One of the two hospitalised received two gunshots to his chest and was in critical condition.
The detained assailant was also taken to a hospital where he died later of his wounds. Both assailants hailed from the city of Makhachkala in the Northern Caucasus region of Dagestan, the spokesman said.

Dagestan has been the site of regular attacks against security services as Russia is battling an Islamist insurgency in the region but brazen shootouts in the Russian capital are a much less frequent occurency.

Moscow`s top cop, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, speaking in televised comments, said police had to work in "extreme conditions", saying a war against criminals was raging on Moscow`s streets.

BDST: 13:08 HRS, August 12, 2010