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Russian regional leader wounded in bomb attack

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-22 20:37

Ingush presidential press secretary Kaloi Akhilgov, who said he was with the president in hospital, said Yevkurov: "has injuries of medium gravity. He is conscious."

Asked if the president's life was in danger, Akhilgov said: "No, not yet".

Investigators work at the scene of a bomb explosion on the outskirts of Nazran June 22, 2009. [Agencies]

Doctors said Yevkurov had suffered head injuries, burns and damage to internal organs.

The smallest of Russia's regions in size, the Republic of Ingushetia has a population of around half a million people who rank among the poorest in the country.

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Medvedev appointed highly decorated ex-paratroop officer Yevkurov as president in October, replacing former secret police officer Murat Zyazikov, who was blamed by critics for fanning the insurgency with heavy handed measures by special services.

An ethnic Ingush, Yevkurov was the commander of Russian troops who took control of Pristina airport in Kosovo in 1999 after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.

"While there were assassinations before and the level of this very targeted terrorism was obviously increasing, both in Ingushetia and Dagestan, this is out of the range of expectations," said Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute analyst Pavel Baev.

"The figures who were targeted before were generally those who were not seriously protected -- they were attacks against so-called soft targets while this was an attack against an extremely well-guarded target."

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