A senior FSB officer was killed on Thursday in a blast in the city of Khasavyurt in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, law enforcers said.
“The incident took place in Khasavyurt at 11:00 Moscow time (7:00 GMT). A self-made explosive device of an unknown type detonated when an off-road vehicle of the FSB department senior officer was passing by,” a source in the republic’s investigation department said.
The source said four people were hospitalized with injuries of varying degrees, all of them were the official’s female relatives.
A police source identified the victim as Lt. Col. Ibragim Dzhabrailov, a deputy chief of the city’s Federal Security Service (FSB) department.
Russia has been battling a low-level Islamist insurgency in several republics in the North Caucasus. Ingushetia, along with Dagestan, has seen the brunt of the fighting in recent years.