[Antara] At least six people died in violence in Russia`s mainly Muslim south on Monday and four other bodies were discovered, officials said, amid a growing Islamist insurgency in the region.Four suspected rebels were killed on Monday evening after they opened fire at a police checkpoint outside Nazran, the main city in Ingushetia, a police spokesman said. "Four suspected rebels were killed in the return fire," he told Reuters.
One of those killed, Ilez Gardanov, is suspected of involvement in a series of car bomb attacks, RIA news agency reported, citing the Federal Security Service, or FSB.
Two people were killed and four other bodies were found in a series of incidents in nearby Dagestan, a local official said.
Both regions are plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars that devastated neighbouring Chechnya in the 1990s. A surge in attacks in recent months has placed Dagestan at the centre of the insurgency.
The attacks in Dagestan come two days after police there shot dead suspected rebel leader Magomed-Ali Vagabov, who Russian authorities say orchestrated twin suicide attacks in Moscow`s metro in March that killed 40 people.
Early on Monday, a car with two men inside exploded while travelling towards Dagestan`s capital Makhachkala, killing one and seriously wounding a second, a police official said on condition of anonymity.
Two bodies were found on Monday in another car destroyed by an explosion near the town of Karabudakhkent, but the timing of the blast was unclear, he said.
One person was shot dead on Monday in the village of Babayurt in an apparent dispute over a forthcoming municipal election, he said.
A border guard and a forestry official were found knifed to death on Monday after going missing early on Sunday. A second border guard was found dead nearby on Sunday.
The deputy mayor of the Dagestani city of Kizlar was hospitalised on Monday after he was shot in the spine, the prosector general`s office said in a statement.