<p>A suicide bomber detonated explosives as Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov’s convoy drove past on the way to work at about 8:30 am local time, the regional prosecutor said in a statement. <br /><br />Yevkurov’s driver was killed and three others wounded by the blast which wrecked the armoured Mercedes and gouged a 2-metre crater in the road, a witness said. <br /><br />Yevkurov, 45, was rushed to hospital in Nazran, the largest city, where he underwent immediate surgery. A doctor said he was on artificial respiration, but a presidential aide said he was conscious and his life was “not yet” in danger. <br /><br />Ingushetia has overtaken its neighbour Chechnya as the main centre of violence along Russia’s southern flank, challenging the Kremlin’s fragile rule and, security forces say, providing a foothold for global networks of Islamist militants. <br /><br />“The crime was carried out by members of illegal armed groups to destabilise the situation in the republic,” Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Prosecutor-General’s main investigative unit, was quoted as saying by local news agencies. <br /><br />The explosion ripped roof tiles off a nearby house and dislodged bricks from walls. <br /><br />Television pictures showed a burnt-out wreck of a car in a ditch at the side of the road.</p>
<p>A suicide bomber detonated explosives as Ingush President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov’s convoy drove past on the way to work at about 8:30 am local time, the regional prosecutor said in a statement. <br /><br />Yevkurov’s driver was killed and three others wounded by the blast which wrecked the armoured Mercedes and gouged a 2-metre crater in the road, a witness said. <br /><br />Yevkurov, 45, was rushed to hospital in Nazran, the largest city, where he underwent immediate surgery. A doctor said he was on artificial respiration, but a presidential aide said he was conscious and his life was “not yet” in danger. <br /><br />Ingushetia has overtaken its neighbour Chechnya as the main centre of violence along Russia’s southern flank, challenging the Kremlin’s fragile rule and, security forces say, providing a foothold for global networks of Islamist militants. <br /><br />“The crime was carried out by members of illegal armed groups to destabilise the situation in the republic,” Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Prosecutor-General’s main investigative unit, was quoted as saying by local news agencies. <br /><br />The explosion ripped roof tiles off a nearby house and dislodged bricks from walls. <br /><br />Television pictures showed a burnt-out wreck of a car in a ditch at the side of the road.</p>
