Two senior officials killed in Russian republic of Dagestan

Alimsultan Alkhamatov, head of the republic's Khasavyurt district, which borders on Chechnya, was gunned down in southwest Moscow at about 8:15 p.m. local time, the official said, adding the attackers are believed to have fled the scene in a Mercedes and later abandoned the car.

He gave no further details of the murder.

Earlier on Sunday, a deputy head of Dagestan's criminal police was killed, along with a police officer, his nephew, in an apparent militant attack in the republic.

Gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons at Alimsoltan Atuyev and his nephew, who were driving a police car in the village of Stariye Miatli.

Attacks on troops, police and other officials have been a daily occurrence in Dagestan and Russia's other mainly Muslim North Caucasus republics in recent months. They are blamed on separatists, who are still active in the region after two Kremlin-led campaigns in Chechnya in the late 1990s- early 2000s, or criminal groups.