Russia: Female suicide bomber kills Muslim cleric; 12 killed elsewhere in Dagestan and Ingushetia

BOLGAR, Russia (Reuters) - A woman suicide bomber killed an influential Islamic cleric and six of his followers in Russia's southern Dagestan region on Tuesday as President Vladimir Putin visited another mainly Muslim province and called for an end to religious violence.

Said Atsayev, 74, a popular Sufi Muslim spiritual leader also known as Sheikh Said Afandi al-Chirkavi, was killed when the woman entered his home disguised as a pilgrim and detonated an explosive belt around her waist, police sources said.

In a separate incident in another part of Dagestan, a border guard shot and killed seven other servicemen at a frontier post and was killed by return fire, the federal Investigative Committee said. [...]

Also on Tuesday, the Investigative Committee said security forces in Ingushetia killed four suspected militants. Itar-Tass news agency cited local Federal Security Service officials as saying they were involved in the assault on police and had been planning attacks on the first day of the school term on September 1.

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