MAKHACHKALA, June 12 (RIA Novosti) - A senior police officer in Russia's North Caucasus republic of Daghestan was shot dead Friday on a street in the capital, Makhachkala, a local Interior Ministry official said.
"At approximately 07:50 Moscow time at 92 Akushinsky Prospekt, unknown persons killed the police chief of Makhachkala's Sovetsky district with a shot to the head as he was going to work," the official told RIA Novosti.
Attacks on police officers have increased in recent days following the assassination of the republic's interior minister, Lt. Gen. Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, in the capital last week.
The 52-year-old, who had survived several attempts on his life during his decade in the post, was shot dead after leaving a wedding reception on June 5. The Interior Ministry's head of logistics was also killed in the attack, and several other high-ranking officials were wounded.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev convened a National Security Council meeting in the republic on Tuesday, at which he said the situation in the North Caucasus was complicated, adding that Magomedtagirov's murder represented a challenge to the state.
Since the president's visit there has been a spate of attacks on police in Daghestan, and a senior judge was murdered on Wednesday in Ingushetia, another republic bordering Chechnya.
Aza Gazgireyeva, a deputy judge on Ingushetia's Supreme Court, died of her injuries in a hospital after gunmen opened fire from automatic weapons at her official vehicle in the regional center of Nazran.
