Suicide bomber kills 7 in southern Russia

A suicide bomber killed seven people when he drove his car into a police convoy in the southern Russian region of Ingushetia.

A suicide bomber killed seven people including a top Russian policeman on Wednesday when he drove his car into a police convoy in the southern Russian region of Ingushetia, local media reported.

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Russian news agencies reported that among the dead was Dzhabrail Kostoyev, deputy head of the Ingushetia interior ministry, two of his guards, and four civilians. It was not clear if the suicide bomber was included in the total.

"This morning the deputy minister was going to work from the village of Ekazhevo to the town of Nazran. A car containing the suicide bomber drove onto the road from a side-street ... at the moment the convoy was passing," said a police spokesman quoted by Itar-Tass news agency.

"Almost nothing remains from the car that contained the explosive."

Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya and is inhabited by people closely related to the Chechens, has in recent years been infected by the fighting that has plagued its neighbour since the end of the Soviet Union.

A series of suicide bombings since 2000 have killed hundreds of people in Russia, targeting planes, trains, concerts, government buildings and other objects, but their use has tailed off more recently.

The last deadly suicide attack killed nine police in Chechnya in early 2005, although one such militant blew himself up without causing any other casualties in the nearby region of Dagestan in December.