At least one police officer died and another individual was injured in an armed attack on the republic's interior ministry in Nazran, the largest city in the South Russian volatile republic of Ingushetia, local police reported.

"Five mortars were fired at the interior ministry's administrative building," the spokesman said. "One officer died and another was injured," he said, adding that it was not clear whether the injured was a policeman or not.

The mainly Muslim regions in Russia's North Caucasus were plagued by violence last year, with almost daily attacks on security forces and officials.

Deputy Interior Minister Arkady Yedelev said on January 16 that 235 police officers and interior troops died in the region in 2009, with 686 injured as recorded terrorist acts, including suicide bombings, rose sharply.

Following a January 6 suicide bomb attack on a police compound in Dagestan that killed five and wounded up to 19 people, Medvedev ordered the Federal Security Service to tighten security across the North Caucasus.

The president has also established the North Caucasus Federal District and appointed Krasnoyarsk governor and former business executive Alexander Khloponin as deputy prime minister and presidential envoy to the volatile North Caucasus. Analysts describe Khloponin as a "crisis manager" for the region.

NAZRAN, February 1 (RIA Novosti)