Russian security forces on Thursday surrounded suspected rebels in an abandoned building in the troubled southern region of Dagestan, the local Interior Ministry said. Ministry spokeswoman Angela Martirosova told the Assocaited Press that the exact number of militants was not known, but news reports said that two gunmen were cornered inside a disused boarding school in the village of Chervlyoniye Buruny. Russian troops have been battling separatist rebels in the southern province of Chechnya for more than a decade and the violence has increasingly spilled over into other parts of the troubled Russian Caucasus region including Dagestan. -- SPA 20 40 Local Time 17 40 GMT
