MOSCOW, June 9 (Xinhua) -- A riot police commander was killed by unidentified gunmen on Friday morning along with his three children in the troubled southern Russian republic of Ingushetia.

    The car of Musa Nalgiyev, commander of special riot police of Ingushetia, was attacked in the town of Karabulak as he was being driven to work.

    "As far as we know, Nalgiyev was going from his home to his office. At 8:55 a.m. Moscow time (0455 GMT) automatic fire was opened at his car," a source at the Karabulak police was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.

    The assailants opened fire with automatic weapons on the car and managed to escape later, according to a local official.

    Police are still hunting for the killers.

    In a separate incident Friday, another group of gunmen riding in a car fatally attacked the deputy administration head of a village in Ingushetia close to the border with the war-devastated republic of Chechnya, the regional branch of Russia's Interior Ministry said.

    The deputy head, Galina Gubina, later died from multiple gunshot wounds in hospital, the interior ministry said.

    Chechnya has been wracked by separatist conflicts for most of the past 12 years and violence has also spread to other parts of Russia's restive North Caucasus, a mainly Muslim region where tensions fueled by poverty, corruption and Islamic radicalism have increased in recent years. Enditem