Police say insurgents in Russia's volatile southern republic of Dagestan have killed a prosecutor and then ambushed the regional government's interior minister on his way to the scene of the first attack.
Russian news reports say the minister escaped, but two police officers accompanying him were mortally wounded.
Authorities say a bomb exploded as a car carrying prosecutor Bitar Bitarov to his office in the republic capital, Makhachkala, passed by. The prosecutor later died at a local hospital.
Attackers later fired on a second vehicle carrying regional Interior Minister Adilgerei Magomedtagirov and several police officers as they approached the scene to investigate. The two wounded officers died on the way to a hospital.
Dagestan borders Chechnya, where Islamic separatists have been fighting government forces for more than a decade.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.