At least 15 wounded in vehicle explosion outside cafe in southern Russia

15 people wounded in explosion in Russia’s south

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — A vehicle exploded outside a cafe in southern Russia Tuesday, injuring at least 15 people, police said.

Stanislav Belyayev, a spokesman for the Stavropol region police, said the explosion occurred just outside the cafe in downtown Pyatigorsk, a city in Russia’s North Caucasus. The powerful blast wounded at least 15 cafe customers and passers-by, he said.

Belyayev said the explosion appeared to be a deliberate terror attack, although an official probe had only just started.

Hours earlier, a suicide bomber killed a police officer and wounded two others in a neighboring Caucasus province.

Aslan Dzgoyev of the ministry’s branch in North Ossetia, said the attacker blew himself up at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of the provincial capital, Vladikavkaz. The bomber, who died in the explosion, was accompanied by two other men. One of them was captured after police had shot and wounded him, while the other escaped.

North Ossetia and other regions in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus have been plagued by suicide bombings and other violence stemming from two separatist wars in Chechnya and aggravated by widespread complaints of police abuses.

A rebel Chechen leader claimed responsibility for the March subway suicide bombings in Moscow that killed 40 people.