Unidentified attackers targeted Abkhaz leader Alexander Ankvab`s convoy with a roadside bomb as he was travelling to work in the rebel region`s main city of Sukhumi and then opened fire, wounding the bodyguard who died in hospital.
"According to preliminary information, after a land mine placed in the way of the president of Abkhazia`s motorcade exploded, the cars were fired on from a grenade launcher and a machine-gun," an unnamed security source told Russian news agency Interfax.
Abkhaz television pictures showed a burning car and abandoned automatic weapons in the wake of the attack which injured two other bodyguards but left Ankvab unharmed.
"I was not hurt," Ankvab told Interfax.
It was the sixth time that Ankvab has been targeted by attackers in the volatile region in recent years but none of the cases have so far been solved, local official news agency Apsnypress reported.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich described the attack as "an attempt to destabilise the situation in the republic ahead of the forthcoming parliamentary elections there".
An article published by Apsnypress however linked the assassination attempt to Ankvab`s efforts to eradicate corruption and lawlessess in the tiny war-scarred Black Sea region.
"Those who managed to survive the troubled post-war period and want to go on putting their hands in the state budget should understand that there is a limit to everything," the article said.
Abkhaz separatists declared independence after waging a civil war with Georgian forces in the 1990s following the break-up of the Soviet Union. The conflict killed several thousand people and drove 250,000, mostly ethnic Georgians, from their homes.
Moscow recognised Abkhazia as independent in the wake of Russia`s brief war with Georgia in 2008 and permanently stationed thousands of troops at military bases there -- a move Tbilisi describes as occupation.
But with the exception of a handful of far-flung states, the rest of the world still regards Abkhazia as part of Georgian territory.
Ankvab was elected leader of Abkhazia in August last year after the death of Sergei Bagapsh, who had led the breakaway region from 2005. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
