MAKHACHKALA, March 4 (RIA Novosti) - A teacher who worked for an Islamic school in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan has been shot to death, regional investigators reported Monday.

“At about 22:10 Moscow Time [18:10 GMT], unknown assailants fired eight shots from a handgun at local madrasah teacher Magomed Beyarslanov in the village of Gyubden, Karabudakhkent District [eastern Dagestan],” a spokesman for the regional investigative department said.

“The teacher died of wounds on the site,” he said, adding that an investigation was 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.

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