World Bulletin / News Desk

A minister was shot dead inside his ministerial office in Russia's southern region of Ingushetia on Wednesday, officials said.

The construction minister, Ruslan Amerkhanov, "was shot dead by an unidentified gunman this morning" in his office, a spokesman for the local prosecutor's office said.

Russian news agencies said Amerkhanov was shot dead at point-blank range when a group of armed men burst into his office in Ingushetia's capital of Magas.

Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov is recovering after being seriously wounded in a suicide bomb attack on his motorcade on June 22.

Overwhelmingly Muslim Ingushetia, in the north Caucasus, borders Chechnya which declared independency but was attacked by Russian forces in two wars since the mid-1990s.

Russian ruling in north Caucasus has faced spreading challenge by Islamist fighters during the Chechen war.

The deputy minister, a nephew of Amerkhanov, was also injured in the attack, Interfax news agency reported.

"Ingush officials are a target, not because they implement certain policies or because they symbolise Russia, but because it's a local conflict that is linked to corruption and injustice," said Grigory Shvedov, editor of Caucasianknot.info, a web site that tracks violence in the North Caucasus.

"Events in Ingushetia remind me of a spring that is becoming a river. The flow is increasing because there is no proper strategy to deal with this violence," Shvedov said.

Wednesday's shooting was probably connected to Amerkhanov's work and not linked to separatist violence, Interfax reported quoting unnamed local investigators.