The police chief of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, was shot dead in his car Friday, one of 16 people killed in a string of attacks in the North Caucasus.
At least six insurgents and five Russian troops were killed in gunbattles in the mountains of Chechnya, while five people were killed in attacks in Makhachkala, officials said.
President Dmitry Medvedev has called the violence Russia's biggest domestic political problem and last month appointed Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Khloponin, a former businessman, as his envoy to the newly created North Caucasus Federal District to tackle underlying causes such as unemployment and corruption.
City police chief Akhmed Magomedov was killed along with his driver and two bodyguards when gunmen opened fire on his car in Makhachkala. He died on the way to a hospital, police spokesman Mark Tolchinsky said.
Magomedov met with Russia's Interior Minister in the aftermath of a Jan. 6 suicide bombing that killed five police officers and wounded 18, giving assurances that those responsible would be caught. A spokesman for the Investigative Committee told Interfax that Magomedov had survived an assassination attempt in the same area in 2005.
The head of a police counterterrorism department in one of Dagestan's districts was killed earlier in the day when a bomb planted beneath his car exploded, the federal Investigative Committee said.
In Chechnya, forces controlled by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov battled rebels in the forested Caucasus Mountain foothills southwest of Grozny.
Five federal servicemen were killed in fighting that began Thursday and persisted Friday, said Maryam Nalayeva, an official in Chechnya's Investigative Committee. Six insurgents were killed Thursday in fighting nearby, Kadyrov's office said.
(Reuters, AP, MT)
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