Violent incidents occur almost daily in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus, where rebels want to establish an Islamic state with sharia law.
One serviceman was killed during an anti-terrorist operation in the Kizlyar region of Dagestan, and three local policemen were wounded, the committee said in a statement on its Web site www.sledcom.ru.
"Three members of a gang were killed by law enforcement forces at around 0600 (0200 GMT) in the morning in a forest near the Shoumyan village," the committee said.
Dagestan is a multi-ethnic republic on the Caspian Sea considered the heart of the Islamist insurgency, a decade after federal forces drove separatists out of power in neighbouring Chechnya. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
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