<p><br /> Masked gunmen have shot dead three tourists from Moscow in the North Caucasus province of Kabardino-Balkaria.<br /> </p><p><br /> Assailants in a black car forced a minibus carrying five holidaymakers to a halt and demanded to see their documents, the Itar-Tass agency reported.<br /> </p><p><br /> When the passengers asked to see identification, the assailants opened fire, killing two men and a woman and wounding the other two passengers.<br /> </p><p><br /> The Kremlin is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet wars against separatists in Chechnya.<br /> </p><p><br /> The insurgents, who want an Islamic state in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed 36 people at Moscow's busiest airport last month.<br /> </p><p><br /> The insurgency has spread from Chechnya in the past decade to other provinces in the North Caucacus, primarily Dagestan and Ingushetia but also Kabardino-Balkaria, whose wooded peaks attract skiers, mountaineers and other vacationers from Russia's heartland.<br /> </p>
