Two die in Russian car bomb attack

A car bomb attack near the main market of a Russian city on the border of the war-wracked republic of Chechnya has killed two people and injured up to 10.

Heavy smoke filled the area as firefighters battled flames after the explosion and glass in some of the buildings in Vladikavkaz was shattered.

The regional interior ministry’s spokesman Ismel Shaov said the dead were a civilian and a soldier.

The Federal Security Service in Moscow said a truckload of Interior Ministry soldiers was passing by when the bomb exploded about 200 yards away from the city’s central marketplace. That market and others in the city have been hit by a series of bombings over the past five years.

Vladikavkaz is the capital of the province of North Ossetia, to the west of Chechnya where rebels and Russian forces have been fighting since 1999.