Two men were killed in Dagestan overnight when their car came under a hail of gunfire from unknown assailants, an Interior Ministry official in the southern Russian republic said on Saturday.
"At 23:50 Moscow time [on Friday] in Khasavyurt ... unknown assailants with automatic weapons fired at a Lada Samara car in which there were two men: one was a resident of Khasavyurt, the second lived in Makhachkala," the official said.
He said both the driver and passenger died at the scene.
"The Lada Samara was completely burnt-out. One hundred 7.62-mm machine-gun cartridges, 35 cartridges of AK-caliber 7.62 mm, three 5.45mm-caliber cartridges and an empty machine-gun belt were found at the scene," the official added.
A criminal case has been opened into the murder and police are looking for the killers.
Violence is common in Russia's mainly Muslim North Caucasus republics, especially Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, with militants frequently targeting police and officials.
Eight people were killed in Dagestan on Thursday when a vehicle carrying maintenance workers to the site of an earlier attack was blown up.
The Kremlin has pledged to wage "a ruthless fight" against militant groups but also acknowledged a need to tackle unemployment, organized crime, clan rivalry and corruption as causes of the ongoing violence in the region.
MAKHACHKALA, May 15 (RIA Novosti)
