on-don, Russia, Jan 8, SPA -- Four alleged militants were shot and killed Saturday in the restive southern Russian region of Ingushetia, the Federal Security Service said, after more than 100 police and security agents backed by five armored personnel carriers surrounded a house where they had holed up. Yuri Smolyaninov, a spokesman for the Ingush regional branch of the security service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, said that the special operation to eliminate the militants had been completed by early afternoon. The alleged militants were suspected of involvement in an overnight series of attacks on Ingush police installations in June in which about 90 people were killed, said a duty officer in the Russian Interior Ministry's southern regional branch in Rostov-on-Don, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The operation to capture or kill the militants began early Saturday morning, Russian news agencies reported. There were no casualties among law enforcement officers or civilians in the shootout that ensued, the Interior Ministry duty officer said.
