Moscow - The mayor of the capital of Russia's North Ossetia region, bordering Georgia, was shot dead in his car outside his home on Wednesday, Russian media reported.

Officials suspected a sniper attack, a police source told the Ria-Novosti news agency.

"There was a single bullet hole in the door of his vehicle. Presumably it was a single sniper shot which proved fatal," the unnamed police source said.

The Vladikavkaz mayor was rushed to an emergency ward after the shooting. Officials at the hospital said he died of a bullet wound to the heart.

A spokesman for Russia's top investigative committee, Vladimir Markin, said an investigation had been opened into the killing.

North Ossetian President Taimuraz Mamsurov confirmed the mayor's death and said he had been shot at around 9:00 am (0600 GMT). Mamsurov called an emergency meeting of regional security officials after the attack, Interfax news agency reported.

Vladikavkaz, the main regional capital of Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, has been targeted in attacks by Muslim separatist from Chechnya and neighbouring regions.

In 2004, Chechen rebels took hostage a school in Beslan, just outside Vladikavkaz, resulting in the death of 330 people, most of them children.

Attacks have been reported more frequently since Russia's recent war with Georgia in August. Eleven people were killed in the suicide bombing of a mini-bus in Vladikavkaz earlier this month.

North Ossetia borders Georgia's separatist enclave of South Ossetia and is ethnically linked to the region over which Russia fought the five-day war. (dpa)