A suicide bomber in Russia's troubled North Caucasus region killed a senior Interior Ministry official and six others when he drove his car into a police convoy.
Dzhabrail Kostoyev, the No. 2 Interior Ministry official in the southern Ingushetia province, was traveling to work in the regional capital Nazran at about 8:15 a.m. local time when the attack occurred, said Akhmed Aushev, spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Ingushetia.
Kostoyev died instantly, as did two bodyguards and four civilians, Aushev said by telephone. The incident is being treating as an act of terrorism.
Ingushetia is a landlocked region between the Black and Caspian seas. It borders Georgia and Chechnya, the Russian republic where rebels have been fighting to create an independent Islamic state for more than a decade. Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has said Chechnya and Ingushetia may hold a referendum on merging the two regions, reports Bloomberg.
I.L.
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