MAKHACHKALA, December 29 (RIA Novosti) - An aide to a mosque imam has been killed in the capital of Daghestan, the Russian North Caucasus republic's Interior Ministry said Friday.

A law enforcement source said Magomed Saidmagomedov, 27, was shot dead with a Makarov handgun early in the morning, following morning prayers.

According to early reports, the murder was a revenge killing over a conflict between the district mosque imam and local resident Nadyr Magomedov in early December, following which the latter was detained and later discovered strangled in a pre-trial detention center.

An investigation is underway.

In September, another Muslim religious figure was murdered in Russia. The imam of a mosque in the southern Russian city of Kislovodsk was found shot to death in the back in a residential building stairway.