A large explosion hit near a market in the city of Vladikavkaz in Russia's North Ossetia today, killing 17 people and injuring 70 others.
The market and its surrounding streets have been the target of several bomb attacks over the past dozen years, in which scores of people have died.
The bomber detonated his explosives as he drove by the main entrance to the Vladikavkaz market, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Vladikavkaz is the capital of the Russian republic of North Ossetia. Although it is less plagued by violence than some other republics in the region such as Chechnya and Dagestan, North Ossetia suffers ethnic tensions.
It also was the scene of the 2004 Beslan crisis, in which Chechen terrorists took hundreds of hostages at a school - a siege which ended in the deaths of more than 330 people, around half of them children.
Today’s explosion happened in a lane near the market, said the North Ossetian emergencies ministry.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev immediately sent his regional envoy to Vladikavkaz to help coordinate efforts to help the victims. He urged investigators to "do everything to track down the beasts, the scoundrels who conducted that terror attack."
No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, the deadliest attack in the region since a double suicide bombing killed 12 in Dagestan in April. Twin suicide bombings on Moscow subway in March killed 40 people and wounded over 100.
The Vladikavkaz market was bombed in 1999 and 55 people died. Another bombing in 2001 killed six people. In 2004, 11 people died when a minibus stopped near the market was bombed.
In Dagestan, officials said today that a hotel employee and another civilian were shot dead by men trying to build a bomb in their hotel room in the capital Makhachkala yesterday.
A police spokesman said three armed men fled a room in the small hotel after an explosion and opened fire on a hotel clerk and another person who confronted them. Police found several bombs and six grenades in the room.
In the Dagestani town of Khasavyurt, on the border with Chechnya, a policeman returning home from work was also shot dead Dagestan is plagued by near-daily shootings and explosions blamed on criminal gangs and on militants inspired by the insurgency in neighbouring Chechnya.