A double car bombing in Russia's troubled North Caucasus killed at least 14 people and injured more than 120 just days before Vladimir Putin returns to the Kremlin, officials said yesterday.

The attacks late Thursday outside Dagestan's main city, which authorities said may have been triggered by suicide bombers, were the deadliest in the Caucasus in months and smashed any illusion of increasingstability.

The power of the blasts sent huge yellow flames into the night sky, reduced cars to burned wreckage and left a crater in the ground, television pictures showed.