Car bomb kills at least two in southern Russia - agencies

A car bomb killed at least two people in the southern Russian city of Pyatigorsk on Friday, news agencies said, in a worrying development for the Kremlin as Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics in Sochi.
  
State-run RIA cited sources as saying two people were killed, but Interfax and Itar-Tass both put the death toll at three.
   
Interfax said the blast badly damaged a traffic police building. Itar-Tass said the car bomb exploded near a mall.
   
Pyatigorsk lies east of Sochi in the Caucasus mountains, north of a strip of mostly Muslim provinces plagued by near-daily violence linked to an Islamist insurgency. Militants sometimes carry out attacks in cities beyond the borders of the North Caucasus.
   
President Vladimir Putin has ordered law enforcement agencies to improve security in the region as Russia prepares to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in February in Sochi, at the northwestern edge of the Caucasus range.
  
A suicide bomber killed six people in October on a bus in the southern Russian city of Volgograd.

 
REUTERS