Two police, top Muslim cleric killed in Caucasus

Russian police experts on anti-terrorism and a top Muslim cleric who worked to suppress radical Islamist were killed in separate attacks.

Two Russian police experts on anti-terrorism and a top Muslim cleric who worked to suppress radical Islamist were killed on Sunday in separate attacks in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus, Russian news agencies reported.

"The murder of the high-ranking spiritual leader occurred early this morning," a local police source was quoted by Interfax as saying.

"His car was fired on by unknown assailants as the vehicle was stopped at a traffic light in the centre of Cherkessk."

Ismail Bostanov is rector of the Islamic Institute and a long-serving Muslim official in the southern Karachai-Cherkessia region.

Local interior ministry chief, Nikolai Osyak, told Interfax the assassination was linked to Bostanov's efforts suppress Wahabism -- a strain of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia but commonly equated with militant Islam in Russia.

The Muslim leader's son was also wounded in the shooting, according to reports.

The attack occurred even as Muslims in the region were celebrating Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy monthlong fasting time known as Ramadan.

"This heinous, foul murder and on this particular day provokes anger and indignation in every devout Muslim," regional president Boris Ebzeyev told the RIA Novosti news agency.

Karachai-Cherkessia, a predominantly Muslim region in the Russian Caucasus, has experienced relative stability while Russian federal forces are battling a tenacious Islamist insurgency in neighbouring regions.

But mounting violence against pro-Kremlin authorities in recent months has spilled over from next door Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Two Russian anti-terrorism officers were killed on Sunday in a shooting on a central highway in Ingushetia, local officials said.

"Unknown assailants on the federal Kavkaz thruway opened fire at a car carrying employees of the interior ministry of Ingushetia's center for the battle against terrorism," an interior ministry source told Interfax.

"As a result, two employees were killed on the spot and one was hospitalised with wounds," he said.

The incident took place around 0915 GMT near the village of Altiyevo outside Ingushetia's main city of Nazran, agencies said. A search is under way for the gunmen who fled the scene.