MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AFP) — The head of the interior ministry in Russia's turbulent Dagestan region was on Friday shot dead by a sniper while leaving a wedding party, investigators said.
The head of the ministry's logistics unit was also killed in the attack and a third officer was injured, the investigative committee of the Russian prosecutor general's office said in a statement.
Hospital officials said a fourth officer was also seriously injured.
The minister, Lieutenant General Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, died when a sniper opened fire from a building overlooking a restaurant where he was attending the wedding of a colleague's daughter.
The bride's father was among those injured.
Magomedtagirov "was wounded in the heart and died," the chief doctor at the Orthopaedic-Casualty centre in Makhachkala, Magomed Omarov, told AFP after unsuccessful attempts to save his life.
An unnamed prosecution official said a second gunman may also have been involved, firing from another building to "finish off" the victims, RIA Novosti reported.
"Numerous bullets from an automatic weapon were found at the site of the attack. Ballistic and pathological examinations are being carried out and witnesses questioned," the investigative committee said in its statement.
In office since 1998, Magomedtagirov was a high-profile figure who frequently appeared on television to comment on the latest upheavals in chronically unstable Dagestan.
He was targeted in at least three previous attacks, including a 2005 suicide bombing.
Sandwiched between war-torn Chechnya and the Caspian Sea, Dagestan is one of the most violent parts of Russia's North Caucasus.
Friday's killing is a new blow to the prestige of regional president Mukhu Aliyev, who took office in 2006 amid hopes he could initiate a fresh start for Dagestan.
Analysts say rebels in the region are motivated variously by separatist and Islamist goals, while rampant corruption and infighting among officials have exacerbated tensions.
In April Russia declared an end to a 10-year counter-terrorism regime in next-door Chechnya, signalling confidence about the security situation there in the wake of two full-scale wars in the post-Soviet era.
But attacks have continued across the North Caucasus in recent weeks, claiming the lives of numerous members of the security forces.
Analyst Yulia Latynina, who works for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, said the attack was proof that the leader of Dagestan, Aliyev, despite being regarded as an uncorrupted figure, had failed to assert control.
"There's been a vacuum of power. Aliyev is not at all corrupted but he's also a weak ruler.... There's been an unbelievable growth in murders. Dagestan is heading down a one-way street," said Latynina.
Caucasus expert Alexander Cherkasov, of the human rights organisation Memorial, said it was too soon to say whether the minister had been killed by Islamist fighters or was a victim of political feuding.
He said the situation continued to deteriorate as the local Muslim population became radicalized in response to torture and abuses by the police. In Magomedtagirov's time as minister "the situation has degraded into a vendetta between the police and the Dagestani underground," said Cherkasov.
"There's a widespread sense of hopelessness and injustice and as a result people go underground," he added.
For its part the investigative committee described Magomedtagirov as a "highly professional, battle-hardened general and a wise leader."
The minister was due to be buried later Friday in his home village.
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