A 20-year-old player with a soccer team in Russia's Daghestan region has been shot dead while driving through his home village.
The Anzhi Makhachkala soccer team in Daghestan announced on January 4 that midfielder Gasan Magomedov, a regular with Anzhi's youth and reserve teams, had been killed when his car was sprayed by machine-gun fire.
There have been no arrests and no reports of other casualties.
The club did not offer a motive for the incident.
Daghestan is the scene of frequent violence, and gun battles between Islamist insurgents and Russian security forces are common.
Many of Anzhi's top stars prefer to live in Moscow to avoid security risks.
