A group of Chechen rebels stormed into a village in southern Russia today, killing at least three border guards, police said. One Russian news agency said they had seized hostages in a hospital.
A regional interior ministry spokesman in the Caspian region of Dagestan said up to 25 heavily armed fighters burst into the village of Shauri, about 100 kilometres from the border with Georgia.
Itar-Tass news agency quoted a senior Dagestan official as saying the rebels had seized a number of hostages in the village's hospital.