Security official shot dead in the Black Sea resort of Sochi - the site of next year's Winter Olympics

A security official was killed by unidentified gunmen in Russia’s Ingushetia republic today, the latest violence in a region plagued by an Islamist insurgency and near the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

President Vladimir Putin has launched a huge security operation in regions surrounding the Black Sea resort of Sochi to stop any insurgent attacks on next year’s Winter Olympics, but the North Caucasus region suffers almost daily violence.

Ahmed Kotiyev, head of the regional security council which advises on security and defence matters, and his driver were shot dead by gunmen who sprayed their car with bullets on a highway 19 miles north of the major city of Nazran.

The shooting follows a botched assassination attempt against Mr Kotiyev in June when assailants fired a grenade launcher on his house.

Ingushetia’s President, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who himself survived an assassination attempt in 2009, said it was an “affair of honour” to find who killed Mr Kotiyev.

Ingushetia, west of Chechnya, is in an area where militants are fighting on an almost daily basis to try to establish an Islamist state.

Reuters