At least two soldiers are dead after coming under fire in the southern Russian province of Ingushetia, Russian news agencies have reported.

"A column of military personnel stationed in Ingushetia came under assault rifle and grenade fire,"a local interior ministry spokesman told RIA Novosti news agency on Saturday.

"As a result, two soldiers were killed and two were hospitalised."

A spokesman for the Ingushetian interior ministry said that a convoy came under fire near the village of Muzhichi, about 25km east of the main town of Nazran, but was unable to confirm casualties.

However, a local opposition website reported that "around 50 soldiers" had died in a series of attacks by rebel fighters across Ingushetia, a small territory which shares a border which Chechnya.

"A source from the Sunzhensky region interior ministry said around 50 soldiers were killed," the Ingushetia.org website reported.

Convoy destroyed

A regional law enforcement official told the Reuters news agency that three armoured personnel carriers and two lorries were hit by automatic-rifle fire and grenades killing all but one soldier travelling in the convoy.

"The soldiers didn't even manage to resist, because several rocket-propelled grenades hit their trucks," the source said.

A resident of the Muzhichi told Reuters that troops had barricaded the village and were checking passports while two helicopters circled overhead.

Moscow is struggling to control Ingushetia - a poor, predominantly Muslim province - which has seen increasing numbers of bombings and clashes between federal troops and local armed groups.  

The local branch of human rights group Memorial says that 93 people, from a population of 470,000, were killed in violence in the first eight months of the year.

Russian officials blame the violence on groups of armed men, many driven by Islamist ideas, who they say have tried to overthrow Moscow's rule since 2002.

Locals and human rights groups have criticised heavy-handed tactics by the security forces, which along with poverty and official corruption have created a groundswell of popular opposition to Moscow-backed officials.

In a separate incident on Saturday, a car exploded in the village of Kantyshevo killing its driver in what reports quoted officials as saying could be the accidental detonation of a bomb intended for "a terrorist attack".