MOSCOW, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Police killed two rebels in Russia's southern republic of Dagestan on Tuesday, Russian media reported. A special operation against a group of armed militants was under way in the region's Derbent district, an area named after Dagestan's second city, about 300 km (186 miles) south of the capital Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea coast.

Shootouts between soldiers and rebels occur more often in Makhachkala and near the border with Chechnya to the west.

"Militants opened gunfire in the morning. The exchange of fire has now ended," Russian news agency Interfax quoted a local law enforcement source as saying.

The killings marked the first violence of the year in the troubled Dagestan republic.

Two wars in Chechnya since 1994 have scarred the entire north Caucasus region and violence has spilt over its neighbours Dagestan and Ingushetia. (Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Stephen Weeks)

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