NAZRAN, August 29 (RIA Novosti) - A former police chief of an anti-organized crime department in southern Russia has been gunned down in the latest attack to hit the region, a police source said Monday.
The fatal shooting on Monday night in Ingushetia's biggest city was at least the fourth targeting law-enforcement officers in the North Caucasus republic this month.
"It [the attack] happened in central Nazran near a hospital," the source said. "Unidentified gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons at a Mercedes with a police officer inside. He died at the scene."
The attack occurred at 11:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. GMT).
Although authorities have stated the active phase of the counter-terrorism operation in neighboring Chechnya is over, violence has continued to affect the North Caucasus as a whole. Three law-enforcers lost their lives and two others were seriously wounded in two separate attacks in Ingushetia on Saturday and two police officers were injured in Chechnya Sunday.
Akhmed Murzabekov, a district police chief in Ingushetia, was shot three times but survived an assassination attempt on August 23.
On August 10, Prosecutor of Nazran Gerikhan Khazbiyev survived an attack, but his brother was killed and 13 people were wounded.
Tow days earlier, Bitar Bitarov, a prosecutor in another regional republic, Daghestan, was fatally wounded in a car bombing. The republic's interior minister, Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, survived an attempt on his life while on his way to the scene on the same day, although three policemen were killed.
The attacks came against the background of a campaign in the region to give militants the chance to surrender after Russia's terrorist number one, Shamil Basayev, who claimed responsibility for the 2004 Beslan school massacre and other atrocities, was killed on July 10.
The term for the voluntary surrender for militants in the North Caucasus has been extended until September 30.
