A car bomb killed three people near Russia's restive Chechnya region on Wednesday, but Dagestan's deputy prime minister and a security chief escaped the apparent bid to assassinate them, officials said. The bomb went off in the town of Kizlyar in Dagestan as the region's deputy prime minister and security council chief drove away from the government building in an armoured Mercedes. Neither was hurt. The dead were two passers-by, including a woman, and the driver of a car accompanying the officials, said Ibragim Aliyev, head doctor at Kizlyar's hospital. A further five people were injured, he said.Dagestan has been infected by a spillover of violence from Chechnya, where rebels have fought Russian rule for a decade. It is also prone to criminal clashes. Amuchi Amutinov, the Dagestani deputy prime minister who escaped injury in Wednesday's attack, survived a previous assassination attempt that analysts blamed on a criminal gang. Amutinov also heads Dagestan's pension fund.