MOSCOW/ROSTOV-ON-DON. June 26 (Interfax-AVN) - One gunman was killed when policed clashed with an armed militant group in the village of Muzhichi of Ingushetia's Sunzha district, in Russia's North Caucasus, a local police spokesman told Interfax on Friday.
Police are now hunting all the remaining members of the armed group.
"An armed group of six to ten people entered the village of Muzhichi at around 3:00 a.m. They planned to steal food supplies from the village's shop. A gun battle broke out, during which one militant killed himself presumably by setting off a grenade. Another two [militants] were wounded, but managed to escape together with their accomplices," the spokesman said.
The militant killed in Muzhichi could be a mercenary from Azerbaijan, a spokesman for the headquarters of the group of forces told Interfax.
"Preliminary reports based on local residents' testimony suggest that he could be of Azeri descent," the spokesman said.
In a separate development, police have detained a former militant in the village of Starye Atagi in Chechnya's Grozny district, a source in law enforcement services told Interfax.
The detained man is suspected of being a member of an armed group in May-November 2001, he said.
A person accused of providing one of the militants with food supplies has been detained in the village of Shalazhi in Chechnya's Urus-Martan district.
Police officers have found a cache with ammunition in a mountainous and forested area near the village of Mekhelta in Dagestan, a source in the republic's law enforcement services said.
A grenade launcher, explosive devices and other items of ammunition were confiscated from the cache, he said.