MOSCOW, December 4 (RIA Novosti) - Unidentified gunmen shot dead a family of three in Russia's North Caucasus Republic of Chechnya on Thursday, a police source said.

At approximately 2.00 a.m. (23.00 Wednesday GMT), a group of unidentified gunmen broke into a house in the village of Agishty in Chechnya's Shali District, and killed an elderly man, his wife, and their son. An investigation is underway.

Chechnya was the site of two brutal separatist wars in the 1990s and early 2000s and is still plagued by violence, including militant attacks on local police and federal forces.