A senior official and his relative, a policeman, were gunned down on Sunday in Russia's Dagestan, Interfax reported, the latest in a series of recent attacks on security forces in the north Caucasus region. "(They) were shot dead by three men outside a house... The gunmen have escaped," Interfax news agency quoted Dagestan's interior ministry spokesman as saying.
The official, Alim-Sultan Atuyev, was the deputy chief of criminal investigations in the region's interior ministry, he said, adding that Atuyev's position was being treated as a "likely cause of his murder", Reuters reported.
A rise in suicide bombs and armed attacks on police and security forces in Chechnya, where Russia has fought two separatist wars, and in the neighbouring, mainly Muslim regions of Ingushetia and Dagestan, has shattered a few years of relative calm in the North Caucasus.
Local leaders have warned Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that an Islamist uprising has permeated all spheres of society in the region and that they are struggling to combat it.
Growing turbulence in the north Caucasus has become a major headache for the Kremlin, which is worried the violence could spill over into other parts of Russia, home to some 20 million Muslims and dozens of nationalities.
Official, policeman killed in Russia Caucasus-Ifax
A senior official and his relative, a policeman, were gunned down on Sunday in Russia's Dagestan, Interfax reported, the latest in a series of recent attacks on security forces in the north Caucasus region. "(They) were shot dead by three men outside a house... The gunmen have escaped," Interfax news agency quoted Dagestan's interior ministry spokesman as saying.
