Seven people have been killed after a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into a police convoy in the southern Russian region of Ingushetia.
Among those killed was Dzhabrail Kostoyev, deputy head of the Ingushetia interior ministry, two of his guards and four civilians.
Rebels have waged war against police in the North Caucasus region, saying they are collaborating with Russian occupiers.
Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya and is inhabited by people closely related to the Chechens, has in recent years seen violence similar to the unrest that has plagued its neighbour since the end of the Soviet Union.
Fighting spread from Chechnya to the neighbouring regions of Dagestan and Ingushetia after Russian troops poured into de facto independent Chechnya in 1999.
And clashes are increasingly reported in the regions of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachayevo-Cherkessia further to the west.
A series of suicide bombings since 2000 have killed hundreds of people in Russia, targeting planes, trains, concerts and government buildings, but there have been few such incidents recently.
The last deadly suicide attack killed nine police in Chechnya in early 2005, although one such militant blew himself up without causing any other casualties in Dagestan in December.
