(Updates with higher death toll, attack crime-linked)
VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia (AFP)--Three people were killed in an apparent criminal shoot-out Thursday in the capital of Russia's North Ossetia province, near the Georgian rebel region of South Ossetia, officials said.
"In the center of Vladikavkaz, near the intersection of Tamayev and Kirov streets, a Jeep was fired upon and three people were killed," Chermen Zangiyev, a spokesman for investigators, told AFP.
"Two died at the scene and the third died in hospital. All are believed to have belonged to the criminal world," he said.
Witnesses saw a car pursuing the Jeep and firing at it from automatic weapons, an Interior Ministry source said, adding that the victims were involved in trade with South Ossetia.
"The Jeep belonged to a criminal boss known as Bzo," the source told AFP, adding that Bzo and his right-hand man were in the vehicle.
"Bzo controlled the trans-Caucasian highway," which leads into South Ossetia, the ministry source said.
Vladikavkaz is the capital of North Ossetia, a Russian province that shares close ethnic ties and a border with the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, which was at the heart of the brief Russian-Georgian war in August.
Thursday's attack came one day after the mayor of Vladikavkaz, Vitaly Karayev, was assassinated by a sniper near his home. A radical Islamist group claimed responsibility for the attack.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 27, 2008 12:12 ET (17:12 GMT)

Publié le 27 novembre 2008 Copyright © 2008 Dowjones