VLADIKAVKAZ (Russia), Aug 25: The head of the regional administration in Russia’s Caucasus republic of Ingushetia, bordering Chechnya, was injured in an attack on Thursday that killed one of his bodyguards, Russian officials said.

“The Ingushetian prime minister’s car was attacked and he was hospitalized,” a spokeswoman for the ministry for emergency situations told AFP.

Two bombs exploded in the path of the motorcade of the republic’s leader, Ibragim Malsagov, as he passed through the centre of Nazran, Ingushetia’s main town, the spokeswoman said.

Malsagov “was seriously injured by fragments and was hospitalized in Nazran,” a spokesman for the interior ministry’s Ingushetia branch said.

“Due to the seriousness of his injuries the doctors don’t exclude the possibility of transferring him to a Russian hospital outside Ingushetia,” the spokesman told AFP.

Both sources said that one of Malsagov’s bodyguards was killed, although they differed on whether one or two other bodyguards were injured.

According to Russian news agencies Malsagov’s injuries, though serious, were not life threatening.

Russia’s North Caucasus region is frequently rocked by instability and violence, particularly in Chechnya, where Russian forces remain locked in a low-intensity war with separatist rebels, with both sides sustaining fatalities almost daily.

—AFP