Khloponin closes tourist facilities at Caucasian resorts

Russian vice-premier Alexander Khloponin, the presidential envoy to
the North Caucasus Federal District, has demanded that tourists be
forbidden to enter the Elbrus ski resort area while a
counter-terrorist operation continues in two districts of
Kabardino-Balkaria, Itar-Tass reports.

 Masked gunmen shot dead three skiers from Moscow and the Moscow
region on a road in Kabardino-Balkaria on February 18. In a separate
incident, attackers blew up a cable support pole near Mount Elbrus in
the same area on Friday, bringing down dozens of cabins. Head of the
district administration of the settlement of Khasanya, also in
Kabardino-Balkaria, Ramazan Friyev, was killed on the same day.

Assailants in a black car without license plates forced a mini-bus
carrying five tourists from Moscow to halt and demanded to see their
documents. When the passengers asked to see the intruders'
identification, the assailants opened fire, killing two men and a
woman, and wounding the other two passengers.

On Saturday police defused a car bomb placed near a hotel in a popular
ski resort area in Kabardino-Balkaria.