MAKHACHKALA, February 13 (RIA Novosti) - An unknown assailant on Tuesday attacked a police officer in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, wounding him, the Interior Ministry reported.

“A police officer in the town of Khasavyurt [in Dagestan’s north] came out of his car and headed home when an unknown person ran up to him and fired a few shots pointblank,” a ministry spokesman said.

“The officer was hospitalized in serious condition,” he said.

An investigation is underway.

The Islamist insurgency, once confined largely to the republic of Chechnya, has spread across the North Caucasus in recent years. Attacks on security forces, police and civilians are reported regularly in the neighboring republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Kabardino-Balkaria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in mid-October that more than 300 terrorists were killed in the North Caucasus “in the past few months.” “Terrorism” in official Russian politics is used loosely and in preference to more neutral terms, such as “insurgency.”

Over a decade after the war against Islamist separatists in Chechnya ended, Russian security forces continue to fight militants in the volatile region.