MOSCOW, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Nine Chechen police officers were killed when gunmen armed with automatic weapons attacked their convoy in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, the Itar-Tass news agency reported Saturday.

    Nine other police officers were badly wounded in the roadside strike, one of the deadliest recent attacks in the volatile Caucasus, the Interfax news agency reported.

    Ingushetia is one of Russia's most violent regions. The site of Saturday's attack is near where the province's president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, was gravely wounded in a car bombing June 22.

    Policemen from Ingushetia and neighboring Chechnya were conducting a special operation against militants in the border area at the time of the attack, Itar-Tass quoted Alexei Vorobyov, secretary of Ingushetia's security council, as saying.

    The Kremlin in April formally ended an anti-terrorist operation in Chechnya, which has experienced two bloody separatist wars in the past 15 years.

    Despite increased stability, militant attacks and clashes remain frequent in Chechnya and its neighboring regions.

    A series of terrorist attacks and killings occurred in the area last month, including the June 5 fatal shooting of Adilgirei Magomedtagirov, Dagestan's interior minister, and the bombing that badly wounded Yevkurov.