Two car bombs killed at least two people today in Dagestan, a turbulent province in Russia’s North Cauascus region where car bombs, suicide bombings and fire fights are common.

The region is at the centre of an Islamist insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet wars against separatist rebels in neighbouring Chechnya.

Dagestan is ethnically mixed, mostly Muslim region between Chechnya and the Caspian Sea and it has become the most violent province in the North Caucasus, where insurgents say they are fighting to carve out an Islamic state out of southern Russia.

Investigators initially said eight people had been killed by the two blasts in quick succession in the provincial capital, Makhachkala, but law enforcement officials later put the death toll at two and Russian media reported more than 20 people had been wounded.

Both explosions were near the headquarters of the court bailiffs’ service and appeared to have been detonated by remote control according to the federal investigative committee.

The twisted wreckage of a car could be seen near the building, which was cordoned off by police as most of the wounded and the two dead were caught by the second of Monday’s explosions, a few minutes after the first.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered law enforcement authorities to ensure insurgents do not attack the 2014 Winter Olympics next February in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, which is close to the North Caucasus.

At least 405 people were killed in Dagestan in violence linked to the insurgency last year, according to the Caucasian Knot website, which tracks developments in the region.