Roadside bombs and gunfire killed six people and wounded five in Russia's North Caucasus region, officials have said, as a provincial leader remained in critical condition from an earlier suicide attack.
The president of the province of Ingushetia, Yunus Bek Yevkurov, has been kept on an artificial respirator in a Moscow clinic since he was wounded in a suicide bombing on Monday, but his life was not in immediate danger, said his spokesman, Kaloi Akhilgov on Wednesday.
Chechnya and Ingushetia share a border in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, where a separatist Islamic insurgency mounts daily attacks on police and other officials -- an aftermath of two separatist wars in Chechnya over the last 15 years.
Chechnya's branch of the Russian Interior Ministry said a roadside bomb destroyed a car late Tuesday and killed two civilians it was carrying. Early yesterday, five police were wounded by a bomb hidden amid roadside garbage, it said.
In Ingushetia, a police officer was shot dead yesterday by unidentified assailants in a drive-by shooting, local prosecutor's office said. In a separate clash later, several gunmen riding in a vehicle opened fire at police who tried to check their identity papers. Police killed all three militants, the regional Interior Ministry's branch said.
{{/usCountry}}In Ingushetia, a police officer was shot dead yesterday by unidentified assailants in a drive-by shooting, local prosecutor's office said. In a separate clash later, several gunmen riding in a vehicle opened fire at police who tried to check their identity papers. Police killed all three militants, the regional Interior Ministry's branch said.
{{/usCountry}}Officials have blamed Islamic militants for the attack on Yevkurov, but no arrests have been made.